Page 33 of Dirty Gambit

“I really wish you hadn’t done that,” she murmured slowly.

Anger and embarrassment surged through him. “And what exactly had you thought I would do?”

She seemed to consider this a moment before giving a reluctant nod. “I guess you’re right.” She pushed to her feet and stood over him, a damp avenging angel. “Which hand?”

“Go to hell,” he spat instead, his annoyance taking new life inside him.

Lena seemed unaffected by the venom. Maybe she’d been expecting it, or maybe she just didn’t care. Whatever her thoughts, she moved around him, forcing him to follow her strides all the way to his other side. She knelt next to his blanket and, for the first time, Jaxon saw why she’d put his blanket there.

A wet, rusted pipe curved up from beneath the floorboards and followed the support beam to the rafters. A bracket had come loose towards the bottom, leaving just enough space between wood and steel for the cuffs to slip through. That’s what she did. She hooked one loop through the gap and the other was slapped over his right wrist.

Jaxon gave a yank, but the rest of the bracket screws seemed less inclined to be moved.

“Get some rest,” she said, making her way back to her bed. “We have a lot of ground to make up for tomorrow.”

It was on his tongue to tell her it would make no difference, that it would be for nothing once he got himself and Jessie away from her, but that just sounded pathetic and wasteful. The best element of surprise was to keep his thoughts to himself until he could utilize them to make their escape. It almost made him regret not overpowering her the several times he’d had the chance, but he knew those were not ideal situations and he had to think of Jessie and her safety.

The soft whisper of her breathing filled the space around him almost instantly. He’d known she was exhausted but hadn’t realized how much until she’d completely passed out with one arm looped around Jessie’s tiny middle.

He wasn’t entirely sure he believed her when she said she wasn’t the girl’s mother. Who else would go through so much trouble for someone not closely related to them? At best, he guessed she was an aunt or a cousin. He considered a friend, but the resemblance was too uncanny for that. Not that it mattered. Whoever she was, she was a threat to his family, and he couldn’t overlook that.

Gingerly, careful not to disturb the wounds on his wrist any further, Jaxon scooted down onto his makeshift bed, trying hard not to think of all the gross things calling the nest home. He ignored the bits of straw poking through the thin blanket, making his skin itch and his imagination run rampant. He thought maybe his restlessness was due to being drugged and knocked out for a large part of the afternoon, but he knew that had nothing to do with it. His mind was too wired to rest. It kept jumping between insects crawling into his mouth if he shut his eyes to possible escape ideas. The only bright side of it all was the war raging beyond the thin walls. The wild lash of rain held an odd sort of comfort he couldn’t ignore. It felt as though the weather was furious for him and was trying to set them free. Either that or it was trying to kill them

In the bedroll next to his, Lena grumbled something lost in the noise. The narrow curve of her spine shuddered, the only indication he hadn’t imagined the sound. Her leg twitched once as if preparing to flee. She groaned, an unmistakable protest a second before she thrust out an arm in self-defense.

“I won’t…” she breathed, voice a ragged gasp.

Jaxon twisted onto his side, propping himself up onto his unbound arm. The motion wrenched his cuffed arm at an odd angle over his head, but he struggled to make out the words being mumbled, but each one seemed to be only partially in English. The rest kept getting swallowed by the rain and the cracks of fire. On her other side, Jessie slept on, oblivious to it all. The baby had always been mild tempered and content, but even he was surprised by how well she was taking this road trip. The few times she’d been whisked off on vacation with their parents, they’d been traveling first class on a private jet with zero layovers and an endless supply of attention from those around her. He supposed she still had the attention, but not even he could keep his impatience in check when being trapped in a death mobile for hours at a time. Jessie had been reasonably calm, if not unnaturally uncharacteristic for a baby for most of it. Not that he wasn’t eternally grateful. The last thing he wanted was for this trip to end up giving her some weird baby PTSD. He was also thankful she was too young to remember the ordeal of being forcibly stolen from her loving family. Yet, at the same time, if Lena got away, it meant there was a chance Jessie wouldn’t remember them at all and that terrified him.

Refusing to accept the latter ever happening, Jaxon returned his focus on the woman now twisting onto her back. The hot glow of fire glinted off the cold steel of the gun hanging limply from her fingers. The sight of it sent a thick spear of ice slicing through him. It was only the fact that her finger wasn’t on the trigger that kept him from forcibly gnawing his own arm off to wrench it away from her. All he could do was pray to God it simply dropped from her grasp and landed safely beside her, or something, without discharging and killing someone. He considered calling to her, waking her up, but he couldn’t risk startling her and having her shoot him. So, he half lay there, practically holding his breath while she fought the demons in her sleep.

“I said I won’t!”

With a snarl, Lena bolted upright, the gun no longer limp, but gripped tight in her outstretched hand. It was with the practiced motions of a cop, or someone very familiar with firearms; he doubted she’d ever been a cop. Everything about her so far screamed criminal.

“Lena,” he murmured gently, so quietly it was merely a movement of his lips, yet his attempts to not frighten her was met with the slash of her arm and the barrel of the gun aimed between his eyes. “Whoa! Hey!”

She was breathing hard, her face a mask of sweat and terror. Wide, brown eyes were shiny with tears and foggy with sleep, but they were focused … deadly. Her gun hand shook with the audible gulp of her swallowing, but it never lowered.

Too afraid to even breathe, Jaxon sat paralyzed, gaze fixed on the tiny black hole that seemed to expand right before him until he felt as though he were falling headfirst down its endless tunnel.

Lena seemed to come to herself on her own with a jolt. She sucked in a breath and quickly lowered the weapon. Her enormous eyes jumped up to him, searching through shadows for signs of injury.

“Did … did I hurt you?” she panted, sounding as unsteady as she looked.

Fairly certain he’d soiled himself a bit, Jaxon could merely shake his head.

Lena exhaled and quickly turned to Jessie. She looked the baby over carefully before truly allowing herself to relax, but only slightly. Her hand still shook when lifting to swipe wet tendrils of hair off her face. She was still ashen and sweaty, and her every intake of air hitched. Nevertheless, she fussed with Jessie’s blanket, carefully tucking it around the tiny, sleeping form. But Jaxon could tell she herself would not be getting any more rest. He’d had nightmares before. He knew how they worked, knew how they clung to you even after you were awake. But he didn’t know what to say to her. What was he supposed to say to the woman holding him against his will? He supposed he could ask if she was alright, but what good was that? He could see she wasn’t and there was nothing he could do to help with one arm attached to a pipe.

“What was it about?” he heard himself ask instead.

Giving a sniffle that was unconvincingly disguised as a cough, Lena turned to him. “What?”

“Your dream, what was it about?” he repeated.

She looked away. “Nothing.”

He opted not to let that deter him. “I had a dream once I was on the roof of a building overlooking the city and it was at least eighty stories high, and my buddy came up behind me and shoved me off.”

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