Hot Shot Hero Hostage - Chapter 11
Braden kept close to Sam as they moved through the forest, but he couldn’t see much of her beyond a murky outline in the dark. He couldn’t see anything but the sway of the branches they pushed through, and the weeds and grass wrapping around their legs. The path he’d followed from the parking lot either was gone or they’d gotten off it. Far off it.
“Sam.” He whispered her name, and he felt her tense.
“Did you see something?” she asked.
“No, I can’t see anything. We need to go back. Or call someone.” He expected her to protest like she had earlier, that the light of the cell would give away their destination. But she said nothing.
He pulled his cell from his pocket. But the screen was dark. And no matter how hard and how many buttons he pressed, it stayed dark—just like everything else.
“Mine’s dead, too,” she said. “Lack of signal must have drained it.”
“I have a flashlight in my backpack,” Braden said.
She chuckled. “Backpack. Of course you came prepared.”
“I have everything but a gun,” he said.
“I’ve got the gun,” she said. “I’ve got you covered.”
“Nobody’s shooting at us now. They must have gone away.”
“Or they’re waiting for us to go wherever those directions led.”
“I thought it was going to be a trap,” he admitted.
“But you still came,” she said.
“I’d do anything for you, Sam,” he said.
“And you came alone.”
“That’s what the note told me to do,” he said.
“So it has to be a setup.”
“You came, too,” he pointed out. “And unless you have backup hidden in these woods, you came alone.”
“Because I would do anything for you,” she said, her voice husky with emotion. With love…
His heart swelled with it, too. He couldn’t lose her; that was why he couldn’t ask for certain things he wanted, like children. He knew she wasn’t ready yet, but she would probably get pregnant for him. To make him happy.
Despite how much he wanted a child, he wouldn’t be happy unless she wanted one as badly as he did. As badly as he wanted her.
His hand shook as he reached into his backpack, and he fumbled around inside until he felt the cold, hard metal of the flashlight. He closed his fingers around it and pulled it out. Turning it on could flush out the shooter if they were still out there somewhere, waiting to take another, clearer, shot at them. But they weren’t going to find their way back to the path and to their vehicles without it.
“Ready?” he asked.
A soft click rang out, probably Sam releasing the safety trigger on her Glock. Then she replied, “Ready.”
He was, too. When he turned on the flashlight, he made certain it was away from her, so that if the light drew the shooter’s fire again, it would be directed at him.