Page 24 of The Dragon's Dream Mate (Savage Shifters Special Ops 3)

I nodded and put my fingers to my lips. I whispered back, “Yes, but we have to play along until it gets dark, okay? We have to be brave for just a little longer. Can you guys do that for me?”

They all nodded, with a very serious look in their eyes.

“I told you she would come,” Simone said.

Then, to stop the conversation, I decided that it was time to divert everyone’s attention elsewhere.

“You know, I still love to watchScooby-Doo. I think it’s fun to solve the mysteries along with the gang.”

They all started talking about the cartoon and all the cool characters they had seen, like The Harlem Globetrotters and Batman. Corine said that she really liked The Hex Girls.

Then, we started talking about some of the other cartoons, and soon everyone was joining in on the conversation.

When they were bored with that, we played a game. We played rock, paper, scissors, and whoever lost had to make an animal sound.

“We have to stay quiet, though,” Simone said. “We don’t want those guys out there to hear us, because then they get mad.”

Everyone nodded, and we played our games quietly. The kids kept their voices down, but they still managed to be entertained. I would never say they had fun, but at least their minds were occupied.

After the cheeseburgers were brought out to Simone and us, the guards wouldn’t come back in unless we called them, I hurried up and unlocked all of our legs.

“I need everyone to stay still and pretend your legs are still locked in case the bad men come back in, okay?” I said to everyone.

They nodded. Everyone understood that we were going to escape, but it needed to go according to a plan. This experience gave each of them about a hundred years of street smarts. I silently hoped that their childhoods weren’t going to be lost entirely because of this.

“Keep playing a game. I’m going to look out the window,” I whispered in Simone’s ear.

She nodded her understanding and told everyone we were going to play thumb wars. That game resulted in a lot of quiet laughter that masked any sound I made trying to sneak over to the window.

Someone had half-heartedly nailed down the window. There were two nails on either side of the window, but they hadn’t been driven completely down.

I used my fingernails and one of the handcuffs to try to pry the nails out. About an hour later, ten broken nails and some bloody fingers, I finally had dug the nails out. My bottom lip was also bloody because I had bitten it so hard to keep myself from cursing loudly.

There were locks at the top, which turned quickly and without making any noise.

I looked at Simone and mimed sneezing. She got the hint and pretended to sneeze loudly as I raised the window. I was very relieved to find that the window opened quickly, and there was no squeaking.

There were no bars on the window. I guessed that the guards figured that the very tall privacy fence would deter anyone from getting in or getting out.

Their laziness and incorrect assumptions were to our benefit.

As we waited for the signal, my heart was trying to jump out of my chest.

I had been calm all day, even when the men were trying to check me for any devices. Now, however, as the time for the escape was coming near, my adrenaline had begun to shoot through my veins. I took several deep breaths to regain my composure and to keep the kids from noticing the changes in me and to keep them from panicking.

Simone patted my hand as I rejoined her on the bed. “We’ll be fine. You’re my superhero, and I know that you would never let anything hurt us.”

The kids couldn’t hear everything that she said to me, but they picked up on the word “superhero,” and they all wanted to talk about who they thought were the greatest superheroes. There was one heated whispered discussion about whether Superman or Batman was the best. In the end, they decided that it was Batman because he went out to help people even though he didn’t have any superpowers to help him. Alfred didn’t count as a superpower.

I heard snoring coming from the living room, and the kids chuckled.

Kami said, with a quiet laugh, “He snores loud every night. Sometimes, he snores so loud that Joe comes in to tell him to wake up.”

Every night? How long has she been here?

“Kami, how long have you been here?” I asked her, my question echoing my thoughts.

She looked at the wall and counted four notches.

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