(Do Not Read Back Up Copy)

Chapter XIV

Hailey dropped the conversation. Trying to talk some sense to her didn’t seem to work too well. She kept walking around the room like an ant in a mason jar, thinking she could change things.

She didn’t get it. Even after nearly freezing to death, she still didn’t understand how bad things were on the other side of that door. We were better off dying in here, then trying to fight to get out there. Liam was out there, and he’d kill me if he saw me again.

“Do you think that once you get outside, they’re just gonna let you leave?”

She stopped pacing and whipped her head around towards me. I was really getting sick of that smug look on her face.

“I’m not asking permission, Caleb. When I—“

“When you what? When you open that door and my brother puts a bullet in your skull? What’ll you do then, huh? You’re not a hostage anymore, you’re a target.”

She stomped over and planted both her feet inches away from my face. I don’t know what the hell she thought she was doing, but I stood up. I wasn’t gonna be looked down on by a girl.

Getting off the ground wasn’t as easy as I thought it’d be though. I nearly passed out from the pain. Hailey started up again before I could get my hands over to the side where Liam had slammed me into the wall. There she goes again with that mouth.

“If I’m so high up on your hit list, then why am I still alive?”

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

“And you screwed that up. Gee, I don’t know what to say Superman. Thanks for the body heat, I hope stripping my clothes off while I was unconscious did it for you.”

I sent the back of my hand flying across her face so fast it took her a few seconds to realize she was bleeding.

It took me even longer to realize what I’d done.

I never should’ve touched her.

She wavered a little on her feet but she didn’t cry. Instead the edges of her eyelids narrowed into swollen angry slits. She could be as pissed off as she wanted, I didn’t give a shit either way. I wasn’t gonna take any heat from someone I nearly died trying to save.

“Unless you wanna die here, keep that mouth shut or I’ll hit you again.”

She flicked her tongue lightly across the cut on her bottom lip and slipped into a guilty smile.

“I need you to do something for me,” she said.

“Depends on what it is.”

“Make this count.”

She stepped in close, real close, so I could feel her there—and everything got slow. Trying to think felt like walking around waist deep in molasses—thick and sticky. She slid her hands up the sides of my face and stood up on her toes till her lips were just inches from mine.

I got sloppy all of a sudden, like warm and damp all over the place. What kind of guy breaks a sweat in a thirty-degree icebox? She laced her fingers together around the back of my neck, like she didn’t care how clammy I was and—

Wham.

The edge of her knee came crashing hard, and heavy into the weak side of my ribs. Blood spattered out of my mouth and into her face. I must’ve yelled pretty loud because she went white all over. Hailey grabbed on to me like she thought she could keep me standing but I shifted my weight so she didn’t have a chance of holding me up.

The second I hit the floor, my body did it’s own thing. The shakes hit me in waves. The first couple felt like little tremors, but the later ones got so violent that if I hadn’t tried to keep my head up I would’ve knocked myself out.