Page 13 of Savage Escape

How it wasn’t the stupid chickens that would wake him up in the morning but one of the many strays Kade, another adopted brother, had brought home meowing straight into his eyeball until he got out of bed.

It was odd, talking about his family. Nathan never really had the chance to regale his friends with the humorous and always cringe-worthy tales of his childhood. Because he suddenly realized he had no friends. Sure, there were some high school friends and Navy buddies, but those were all people he used to know.

The Savage family as a whole, except of course for Bobby and Ellen, had never really been good at welcoming strangers with open arms or getting friendly with the locals. They preferred to keep to themselves and the village people tended to regard the Savage family with a wary kind of distrust that was, considering the boys’ combined escapades, understandable.

“You were in foster care?”

He’d been talking so long and planted firmly in his own head that her voice threw him off. For a second, Nathan doubted she’d said anything at all, but she cracked an eye open and peered sideways at him.

“What?” The surprise at her engaging had pretty much pushed all other thoughts out of his head.

“You were in the system—in foster care?” She was staring imploringly at him. Damn, she was pretty. Even all beat to hell, she was pretty.

“Er... yeah.” Nathan tried to focus on her question instead of her lips and forced his mind to pay attention to her words, but it was hard. Foster care. She wanted to know about his time in foster care?Thathad her asking questions and breaking her silence? “My biological parents weren’t—well, my mom ODed when I was seven and my dad just used me and Holden as punching bags till the state stepped in and took us out.”

Something soft and dark moved in her eyes. Maybe she had a similar experience? Which maybe meant that she was from the States. Nathan knew she had to have roots somewhere, but maybe now he could narrow the range of possibilities. That littlebit of information had the man sitting up straighter and leaning in closer.

“Were they... I mean, how did they treat you? Your foster parents.” Her head cocked to the side slightly and her hands were fidgeting with her shirt.

“They were nice. They actually ended up adopting me and Holden after about six months.” Nathan didn’t particularly like talking about his life before Ellen and Bobby, but if it got her to talking and got him even a bit of info on her, he’d write her a book. “It was terrifying at first. I mean eleven years of walking on eggshells, of being in constant fear of triggering an episode, of getting beat on... then getting put with Ellen and Bobby. It was like waking up on a different planet—like we had to relearn how to interact with other humans.”

She nodded absently at him with her brow furrowed, like she wasn’t comprehending what he was saying.

“Can I ask you about your family?” Maybe he was shooting himself in the foot, but he had to ask.

There was a beat of silence. Her eyebrows jerked upwards in surprise and furrowed once again in suspicion. She stared him down and Nathan tried to not make it too obvious he was still staring at her lips. He had to stop perving on a woman who was so incredibly tortured and bloody that she shouldn’t have even been appealing to a fucking zombie. Maybe there was something wrong with him.

Finally, her fists unclenched and her eyebrows smoothed.

“You can, but there’s not much to say.” Her head settled against the wall and her eyes closed. “They’re all dead.”

“I’m sorry.” He frowned, another two beats went by and Nathan couldn’t stop himself. “Okay, so tell me about you, Caden Quinn.”

Nathan scooted closer and watched as she found his face in the gloom. A sardonic little smirk pulled at her busted lips and her dark eyebrow arched at him.

“You want my back story?” There was only amusement in her tone, but her eyes shot to his and she regarded him like she was looking at an alien. Like he was some foreign thing she’d never be able to comprehend. Or maybe she was deciding on which way was best to kill him.

“Well, why not?” Nathan was nothing if not persistent. “Seeing as how you’re not gonna be leaving this prison—I feel it’s only fair.”

“Fair.” Snorting, she rolled her eyes and smirked again. “How is thatfair?”

“What—how is itnot?”

She did a little jerk of her head and her eyes took on that ‘slightly amused but mostly just thinking that he was a special kind of stupid’ look she saved special for him.

“Caden—I chased your ass for two years. Two. In those two years, I’ve arrested you twice. Both times ending in your escape and my being forced onto a ‘vacation’—which thanks for, by the way. Oh and also you’ve shot metwice, whereas I’ve only fired warning shots at your ass.”

Ass, good word choice, really. She had, in fact, shot him in the ass. Nathan hadn’t been able to properly sit for weeks after. His brothers, aside from Reid, had themselves a grand ol’ time coming up with butt jokes and making fun of him.

“Oh, and I guess taserin’ doesn’t count?” Dark eyes narrowed, and she shoved a finger in his direction. “Don’t go pretending like you’re the victim here—you’ve tased me like seventy times.”

“Okay, exaggeration.” Nathan was starting to feel like a girl in his tone and head motions. “I’ve tased you three times—three.Once in Cairo. That one time in that Burger King in Korea, and then in Manhattan. That’sthree.”

“Yeah, well, I onlygrazedyou.” The smirk pulling at her lips curled wider. “Warning shots, you could say.”

Grazed? Grazed. She had freakin’ sniped him. Sure, it hadn’t hit bone or anything fatal, but the scar on his left shoulder was proof enough that she hadn’t just grazed him. Her eyes flicked to his shoulder for half a beat and Nathan was pretty damn sure he saw something like guilt flit through her eyes before it was quickly pushed out and replaced with an ‘I’m not impressed’ look she’d obviously spent lots of time perfecting.

“Point is that I know nothing about you—aside from the very basics. Do you wanna know what was in your file when I first started trackin’ you? A sketch of your face, a list of sightings, jobs that you may or may not have done, and a list of possible contacts.”

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