Rules of Survival(38)

There was little I could do besides wash it off. My clothes were filthy, and even though I couldn’t smell anything—I swore my nose had frozen on the walk over—I was positive I stank. Suddenly I was even more worried about the shackles than I had been. God. Could Shaun smell me? Was the insult of having to pee in the same room as a hot guy not enough? I had to stink, too? This was karma. Payback for sucking face with the enemy.

My thoughts were interrupted when he bumped me aside and thrust his hands under the warm running water. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, and other than dirty clothing, he wasn’t as big a mess as I was. That made me even angrier. I looked dingier than he did—and worse than that, I cared. When had what I looked like started to matter? This was a fight for survival, not date night. I was shackled to a hunter—not a male model.

“You hungry?” he asked.

I was about to answer, but froze when he reached out to me. For an insane minute, I thought he was going to grab my face and pull me closer for another kiss. My heart kicked into overdrive and the air caught in my throat. Maybe I didn’t look as bad as I thought…

But instead of a lip lock, he brushed my hair aside and tucked in the tag of my T-shirt. Wonderful. Now every time he came close I was going to think about kissing him? It made me wonder if handing myself over to Jaffe’s men wasn’t such a bad idea.

Mortified and hoping he didn’t notice, I cleared my throat. “Starved. But let’s get food and go? We’re still too close to Gerald’s for my liking.”

“Works for me, but where are we going—and how are we getting there?”

As we exited the restroom, I glanced toward the cashier, who was too preoccupied with the latest issue of Penthouse to notice two people coming out of the bathroom together. I grabbed Shaun’s hand and made my way up and down the aisles. As I went, I grabbed toothpaste, a couple of toothbrushes, soap, and several candy bars. Then I steered him toward the counter, grabbing a flashlight from the rack as we passed. The cashier eyed me, annoyed, and reluctantly set aside his magazine.

I dumped it all on the counter and fished out the cash, then nudged Shaun’s arm. “Didn’t you see what was next door to the truck stop?”

“No?”

“It was a camper sales lot.” I handed the cashier a ten, not bothering to wait for the change. “And there’s a fast food place on the other side.”

Shaun still didn’t get it. “Okay…?”

“Mom and I once lived in a demo on a sales lot for a week. Those things are all rigged up. Electric, plumbing—some even have food in the fridge. There’s usually at least one per lot.”

Shaun glanced up at the clock above the register. It was almost four in the morning. He took the bag from me and nodded to the door. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

Ten minutes later, there was a bag of burgers and chicken fingers in my hand, and we were on our way through the open field between the truck stop and the sales lot.

“There,” I said as we approached the fence surrounding the lot. “We can climb over.”

“What about security?” He hitched a thumb over his left shoulder. “There’s a camera right there!”

“It’s not hooked up. Look at the side. See that small blue wire sticking out? It’s there for show. To scare people like you.”

“You’d make a pretty awesome hunter. Pat would trade me for you any day, I bet.” He stepped up and grabbed the fence. “Gonna have to do this together. Ready?”

I came up beside him and nodded. We scaled the fence in unison, one link at a time. When we reached the top, we each brought a leg over and started down the same way. Once at the bottom, I asked, “Why would you say that? About Patrick trading you in, I mean?”

Weaving in and out of the wide rows of campers, we started searching for the demo. The lot wasn’t too crowded, so it wouldn’t be hard to find.

“Eh, like you’ve pointed out, I’m not really hunter material. I wanna be—but I tend to get…distracted. Plus, I have an insanely short fuse. It causes problems…”

He sounded upset by the admission, and I found that I felt bad for him. Plus, I could totally sympathize. “I’m sure that’s not true. I bet you’re a decent hunter—you just need more practice. At least you can get better. Learn. There was never any hope for me.”

We rounded the next row. Still no demo.

“Hope for you? What are you talking about?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve broken so many of the rules it’s not even funny. My mom? She’d have found a way out of these cuffs and been in Mexico by now.”

He tried one of the camper doors as we passed. Locked. “You don’t know that.”

“Sure I do. Mom was epic. She could talk her way out of anything. And if she couldn’t talk her way out of it, she could charm her way out. The woman was a legend. I’m okay. I mean, I’ve managed, but I don’t have a quarter of the skill she had in her little toe. She would never have gotten snagged at the cabin like I did…”

He sighed and tried another door. “I think we’re probably looking at things the wrong way, ya know?

“How do you mean?” We rounded the next corner and I saw a large sign at the end that said demo. Tugging Shaun forward, I exclaimed, “Hah! Look.”