Page 46 of Savage Escape

Eyes shut but not squinched, her movements still but not stiff, and breathing deep and even, Caden blindly took in her surroundings.

Freshly cut grass. Surprisingly pleasant. Weird.

Baking bread. New form of torture? Working.

Sweat and old blood. Hers? Most likely.

Cloth on cloth shifting. Other inmates? Guards?

Metal plinking. Cuffs? Didn’t sound like the right kind of metal though.

A dog barking. Attack dog. Not fun.

Soft humming. Not in her vicinity and therefore not a worry at that particular moment.

Pages turning every couple of minutes. Bored henchman reading? Huh.

Bodies shifting. Two? Three?

No Nathan.

There were no Nathan sounds or smells. His deep, even breaths were gonna be forever burned in her memory. The smell of him, although not entirely pleasant, being mostly sweat and blood, she’d grown accustomed to—even felt comforted by. He was not drooling on her, or squashed all up against her like some kind of human blanket. He wasn’t there.

No Nathan.

Caden only just kept her lips from twitching down at the thought. A swell of something angry and dark was gathering in her gut.

Optimistically, he’d gotten away.

Realistically, they hunted his ass down and shot him where he stood.

Or maybe... maybe they’d hunted him down and just imprisoned him again, which meant he could be rescued.

Unlikely. But a girl could dream.

Guilt and grief swamped her.

No. She didn’t know anything for sure. Assuming making asses of all parties and all that, wasn’t that an ancient proverb or some shit? Caden shut it all down. She put thoughts of the most likely dead Nathan in the deepest corner of her mind; yet another thing to push aside until a later date, until she could safely sob all over the place without any witnesses.

Finding out if Nathan Savage was alive and kicking was the plan here. Escaping and somehow getting the upper hand was vital to that plan.

She had to focus.

Soft and firm mattress under her back. How thoughtful.

Bare feet. Cold toes. Her new boots were gone.

No belt.

Loose sweatpants and an equally baggy shirt. Someone had changed her clothes, which was equal parts alarming and annoying.

There were, however, no cuffs on her wrists or rope or zip ties. It was almost disconcerting. Idiots.

IV in her right arm.

Well, all right then, she could work with that. Caden felt a small surge of cruel satisfaction at the feel of it. They’d given her a weapon.

Ailments: A few broken ribs. Possibly a few fractured. Painful, but nothing she couldn’t fight through.

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