Read Online The Escape by Shoshanna Evers - Free Book Online

him there, his death would be on her conscience.
    But then again, she’d been psyching herself up to kill him. Leaving him in the hole would be an easier way. She wouldn’t have to actually pull the trigger. Just walk away.
    Fuck. She couldn’t do it. Not after last night. Not after the way he’d touched her, the way he’d made her feel like she was important.
    Even the fact that he’d spanked her for calling herself a whore didn’t bother her anymore. In a weird, old-fashioned way, he was trying to show her that he cared.
    “Hey Barker,” she said. “Never spank me again.”
    “I’m really sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me.”
    Jenna laughed. He sounded so sincere. Utterly confused by his own alpha-maleness.
    She walked away and set down the pack, looking around for a something she could throw him.
    “Jenna?” he called desperately. “Please, don’t leave me here to die. I’ve been thinking about what you said, and you’re right. They will kill you at the camp. So I won’t ever try to get you to go back. I know you’re right about that now, okay? Jenna?”
    “I’m still here,” she said. “Just looking for something to throw you.”
    “Thank God. I thought you’d left me again.”
    Again? Oh. Right. Like this morning, when she’d stolen everything and run. She felt guilt creep up on her, and shoved it down. She’d save him now, and her conscience would be clear.
    But there was nothing she could see anywhere that would work as a rope.
    “Jenna. How about your shawl?”
    She took the white tablecloth off from around her shoulders. It wasn’t very long, but if she cut it in half she could knot it together.
    “Hang on.” She went into his pack and pulled out the switchblade.
    It didn’t take long to split the cloth into two, and once she’d securely knotted it back together, it would do.
    “I don’t know what to anchor it to,” she said. “What do I do?”
    A pause from below. “How about the closest car?”
    There was a stalled car a couple of feet away, so she tied the cloth to the inside door handle.
    But the makeshift rope only reached to about a foot above his head when she dropped it in.
    “It’s not long enough,” she said, feeling the panic rise into her voice.
    “It's fine. It’ll do. Just stand back so you don’t fall in as well.”
    With a grunt, he jumped and grabbed the rope with both hands, and pulled himself up until his arms were out of the hole, his elbows on the dirty pavement.
    “Almost there,” she said. “You can do it!”
    He yelled as he put all of his upper-body strength into it, and pulled himself out of the hole. The cloth tore most of the way, but he was out. He lay down in the middle of the road, panting from his exertion.
    “You saved my life,” he said softly.
    “You’re welcome.”
    “Please, give me back my gun so I can bring it back to the camp. The story won’t make sense if I don’t have my stuff.”
    “Say it all fell down the hole, and you managed to climb out but had to leave your stuff,” she said.
    No way was she giving up supplies and a gun, not if she was going to be out on her own.
    “They’ll send a rescue mission to get the gun. It’s not like anyone’s making more of them, you know that. It’s too valuable, and too dangerous in the hands of the wrong person.”
    “I’m not giving you the gun, Barker,” she said quietly. “And if you try to take it from me, I’ll shoot you. I don’t want to, but I will.”
    He cursed under his breath.
    “What will I tell them?”
    “That’s not my problem.”
    “Don’t fool yourself. It is your problem. Because if Lanche doesn’t believe me that you’re dead—if he thinks I gave you my gun and gear and let you go—you can bet they’ll come looking for you.”
    Fuck. He was right. But she still wasn’t giving him the gun.
    “Let me think.”
    What story would they believe?
    “Tell them a gang attacked me and killed me, took your stuff, and left you for