Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
We walked in silence, both lost in our own thoughts, but I could see the way Vienna kept lifting her hands, chafing at the bare skin of her matchstick arms as a slight breeze kicked up.
If I had to, I could strip off my shirt and let her wear it. I could handle the cold on my bare skin. She couldn’t.
I really needed to get something into her stomach, too.
I wasn’t from Arkansas, so I didn’t feel comfortable trying to forage for risky things like mushrooms. But there could definitely be things easy to identify that were safe. Raspberries, nuts, maybe if we were lucky, some dandelion greens.
It wouldn’t be pleasant, but it would be fuel that she desperately needed to keep going.
I had enough meat on me to get through a few days without food. But she had nothing left to fuel her body with left.
“Riff?” she called, her soft voice barely more than a whisper.
“Yeah?”
“I can’t walk anymore,” she said, sounding like the admission gutted her.
“No worries,” I said, turning and dropping down again. “Hop on.”
“I’m sorry,” she said as I stood with her on my back again.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I assured her as I started to pick up the pace, praying my old Boy Scout training was serving me well as we went, that we were going in the right direction, not deeper into a forest that seemed to span hundreds of acres on the map.
Thank fuck for that map, actually. For poring over it at the gas station, trailing the path we needed to take with our fingers, checking out the compass in the corner.
The sun was slowly moving across the sky toward the west, so I knew that we were heading toward the south-east. Which should, at some point, run into one of the roads on the map.
From there, I could handle this.
I had cash in my wallet.
I could get someone to drive us somewhere safe.
Then call my brother.
As soon as we stopped again, I would power up my phone to shoot him a text, then turn it back off to conserve the battery.
On my back, Vienna’s head shifted to rest against me and her body felt like it was going lax. Like she was falling asleep.
Shit.
I had to reach back and touch her, then. To make sure she didn’t fall off of me. But the idea of putting my hands on an abused woman had my stomach sloshing around.
I waited until she was even more dead weight against me before reaching back to grab the backs of her thighs, slowly increasing the pressure until I was sure she wasn’t going anywhere.
She didn’t even flinch.
I couldn’t imagine the woman had been able to enjoy some solid, fear-free sleep in a long time. Clearly, her body was making up for lost time.
With her out cold, I kept moving at a more punishing pace, wanting to make as much progress as possible if we were going to have to hunker down for hours and hours soon.
I almost thought I was seeing things at first. Like a mirage of water in the brutal desert.
But as I kept moving in that direction, I was sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.
It was the outline of something solid. But ancient-looking, the wood weather-worn to a gray color with years of the elements beating down on it.
But it was a building.
Shelter.
Something to block out the wind.
I couldn’t risk a fire, though it had a fireplace sticking out of the roof, but maybe there would be blankets inside.
Or food.
I worried it would be too obvious, that someone might see it and figure we would stop to use it as shelter, then surround us.
But I couldn’t force this woman to sleep on the cold ground if I could give her a building.
Even if I stayed up all night and kept vigil.
I had my gun still.
Some bullets.
If the whole crew didn’t come after us, I was pretty sure I could still keep us safe.
Decision made, I headed for the tiny hunting cabin.
I reached carefully with one hand, but the door didn’t budge.
“Vienna,” I called, soft at first, then louder, jiggling my body slightly.
She came alert with a jolt so hard that she fell off of me, crashing to the unyielding ground with a cry of pain, not having any padding on her to ease the fall.
“Sorry, darlin’, sorry,” I said, turning around to find her looking up with confused, wide eyes, until I saw it all come back into focus for her.
“I fell asleep,” she said, brows pinched.
“Yeah, you did. Sorry I had to wake you, but I found a hunting cabin,” I told her, waving at it. “And I think I’m gonna need both hands to get it open.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, slowly moving to push herself up, rubbing her sore butt and thighs as I turned to focus on the door.