Page 56 of Guarded By Them

Ryan wrinkled his nose. “One thing that gets attention out in the forest is a fire. They get out of hand too quickly. I think that could risk us getting noticed more than anything.”

“That close to the border is going to alert the border patrol guards that something’s not quite right as well. We don’t want them to be on higher alert than they already are. There will be helicopters that do random patrols over the area, and they’d be the first to spot smoke.”

“Okay, no fire,” Dillon relented. “We’ll just hide the car and hope for the best.”

Dillon was sitting on the back seat, with his leg resting across it. I had the back door of the car open, to give us more room, and I carefully unwrapped the original bandage and removed the cotton wool and gauze I’d used to stop the bleeding.

“Well, doc?” he asked, his features tight with pain. “How does it look?”

“Not too bad.” I didn’t actually have any experience of gunshot wounds. My mother had done some crazy shit when she’d been drinking, but luckily getting shot had never been one of them. “It’s bleeding a little, but I think that’s from me changing the bandage. You probably could have done with having it stitched up or something, ’cause you’re going to have one hell of a scar.”

He gave me a grin. “Everyone digs guys with scars, right?”

I resisted the urge to smack his leg. “Stop it. You were shot. This is serious.” And now you’re going to have to hike for miles on it, I thought but didn’t say.

He caught my arm and pulled me in for a kiss. “As long as you still love me, Rue, that’s all that matters.”

“I think you’re an idiot.”

“But you still love me?” I almost couldn’t stand the begging in his eyes, the need for that confirmation, even though I’d never given him any reason to make him think I felt any differently.

I kissed him harder. “Of course, I still love you.”

“Then I could handle twenty gunshot wounds.”

I did smack him this time, but on the shoulder, not the leg. “And then you’d be dead.”

He chuckled. “Okay, okay. Stop beating on me.”

I gave him an exasperated mock glare, pressing a smile between my lips at the same time. I loved him so much my heart ached with the weight of my feelings. I looked around at the other two, the way they watched with affection and amusement, and that love only increased. Love wasn’t a finite thing. It wasn’t as though there was only so much to go around, and all that love had to be directed at one person. I could love each of them one hundred percent, and it never needed to be diluted down.

“Should we spend the night in the car,” I suggested to Kodee and Ryan, “and then set out when it gets light?”

It was about five in the afternoon now. We still had a few hours of light, but not many, and it had been a really long day.

But Kodee shook his head. “No, I think we should leave now. If we hit the border at night, that will be a good thing. Darkness will be our friend. It’ll go a good way to covering us if there are any border guards around.”

“Good thinking.”

My stomach roiled with nerves at the thought of being out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. The forest still felt like a dangerous place, even though there were far more hazardous places for me to be right now. I’d lived in the city, with four walls around me, my entire life. But it was within those walls that the worst kind of things had happened to me, so why was I fearful of trees and nature? Besides, I had the guys with me, and we were armed. It wasn’t wildlife I needed to be afraid of, it was the men who might be following us, and the guards at the border who might arrest or even shoot us. I looked to the sleeping bag and the camping mat. I’d never even been camping—my childhood definitely hadn’t been that kind of childhood—and I’d never spent the night under the stars. I should try to see this as an adventure, but the pounding of my heart told me otherwise.

We got back in the car.

Tension increased the closer the road took us toward the border. It would run out soon, but people still came up this way for camping or canoeing. We hadn’t done anything wrong yet, so the border patrol had no reason to stop and question us—not that they would, this far out—but I could tell we were all nervous. Dillon laughed and joked, rambling too fast in that way he did when he was trying to take his mind off something. Kodee sat forward, hunched over the steering wheel, the knuckles of both hands white. Ryan fiddled with whatever he could find at hand—the button of his shirt, his hair, even flicking his own fingers together. It was understandable that we were all nervous. What we were about to do was dangerous.

Kodee spoke up. “I think this is as close as we should risk it.”

We hadn’t seen another vehicle for some time. We were at a hiking trailhead, where there was a small lot where people probably left their cars, but it still felt too exposed.

“Wait,” he said. “Looks like there’s an old logging or mining road up ahead. I think we should try that, and get closer, if we can. We already have a massive distance to cover that could easily break us, so the closer we get the better.”

“Whatever you think’s best.” I trusted Kodee to make the right choice.

“Sounds good to me,” Dillon said, stretching out as best he could in the confines of the car.

Kodee nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this then.”

He pulled the car off the narrow excuse for a road and kept going. I hung on to the back of the passenger seat as we bumped and rocked across the uneven ground.

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