I winced at her insight. “No, me neither. Maybe he couldn’t find this place before now, but I heard he might be coming this year.”
Her blue eyes brightened with excitement. “Really? When?”
“In five sleeps.” I’d already determined the correct date with Yolanda.
“And then we’re going to see him?”
I hesitated and then said, “No, not exactly.”
She frowned, her lower lip pouting. “Then how will I know that he’s been?”
“Because he’ll leave you a present behind.”
“A present!” She hopped up and down, clapping her hands in excitement. “What about you, Angel? Will he leave you a present, too?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe. It depends if I’ve been good or not.”
“He won’t leave you a present if you haven’t been good?”
“No, he won’t. Only good children get presents.”
Her face crumpled, and I realized what I’d said.
“Was I not good before?” she asked. “Is that why I never got any presents?”
“Hey, I never got any presents either. Do you think I’m bad?”
She laughed at the idea. “No, I don’t think you’re bad.”
I smiled. “Well, then. It can’t be because of that, can it? This year is just special, that’s all.”
She seemed to accept that. “So in five sleeps I’ll get a present?”
“That’s right.”
She squealed and clapped her hands. “I can’t wait.” Then she threw her arms around me and hugged me tight.
Catalina counted down the days while I busied myself, carving a small wooden doll from a piece of wood with my penknife, and collecting anything else I could find that I thought she might like. I even managed to fashion some clothing out of an old patterned top Yolanda found for me, and I stole some candy from the kitchen and wrapped it up in some tissue paper for her.
When Christmas Eve finally arrived, I waited until she was asleep and then snuck into her bedroom and left the gifts at the bottom of the bed. Yolanda was right when she said Christmas was about magic. Even though I didn’t have any gifts myself, it still felt like an event, and doing something special for this little girl made Christmas feel magical.
I barely slept, excited for morning and not wanting to miss the moment she woke up and saw that something had been left for her from Santa.
At first light, I snuck back into her room.
She was already sitting up at the end of the bed, clutching the doll I’d made for her. “Look, Angel! Santa came!”
I’d never seen anyone so happy and excited for something before, and her happiness was infectious, swimming into my soul and lighting me up from the inside. “Yeah, so he did. Merry Christmas, Kitty.” I dropped onto the edge of her bed to sit beside her. I didn’t even care that she didn’t know I’d been the one to put the time and effort into making the doll. Just seeing her so delighted was enough.
“Merry Christmas, Angel.” She noticed something, and the smile dropped from her face. “But where are your presents? Didn’t Santa leave you any?”
I shrugged. “Oh, that’s okay. I’m probably too old now anyway.”
She looked down at the candy nestled in her lap and then pushed them toward me. “You can have these. I don’t want them if you don’t have anything.”
“You don’t have to give me your candy, Kitty-cat.”
“But I want to. I won’t enjoy eating them unless I know you’re having some, too.”
My heart swelled at her kindness and generosity, and with a grin, I took a couple of the candies then gave the rest back to her. She grinned back at me and popped one between her lips.
“I think I like Christmas,” she said around her full mouth.
“Me, too, Kitty. Me, too.”
Chapter Four
Present Day
“WE MUST HAVE PUT ENOUGH distance between us and the compound by now,” I insisted, forgetting my earlier promise to myself not to hold Angelo back. “Surely we can stop for a while?”
The heat of the day had grown too much, and we were both exhausted. The sweat from my feet had made the Band-Aids peel, and I was limping again. I felt nauseated with exhaustion, and I didn’t think I could take another step. Whatever excitement and glamor I’d imagined at the thought of running away with Angelo Cassidy, the reality was a very different situation.
Angel glanced down at me, his expression concerned. “Sure. Let’s take a break.”
“Not just a break, Angel,” I insisted. “I need to sleep, and so do you. We can’t keep going like this.”
I didn’t know how much farther it would be until we hit a town, and I was too frightened to ask. If he said we were still days away, or that he didn’t know, I thought I might cry, and I didn’t want Angel thinking of me as a cry-baby. I’d only just turned eighteen, and I had no experience of the world whatsoever, but it was important to me that he didn’t think of me as some spoiled kid who was going to hold him back.
We’d reached a small clearing.
“I guess this is as good a spot as any,” Angelo said, stopping beneath the shade of a tree.
I exhaled a sigh of relief and dropped my bag. I had something else I desperately needed to attend to before I tried to sleep. My bladder had been full to bursting for the last couple of hours, but I’d been too embarrassed to say anything to him. It was easy for him to just stop and relieve himself against some bushes, but I was going to have to remove half my clothing and squat. I’d never peed out in the open before, and my cheeks burned at the prospect. I’d reached the point where I had no choice, however. If I didn’t go soon, I was going to have an accident, and that would be far more embarrassing than peeing in front of Angelo Cassidy.
“I just need to go over there,” I said, pointing toward some taller bushes.
He frowned. “What? Why?”
I raised my eyebrows at him, my blush burning my cheeks. “Why do you think?”
“Oh, right. Of course. I’ll be right here. Just shout if you need anything.”
I thought I’d probably rather be mauled by a bear than call Angel over to help me while I was urinating, but I didn’t say so. Keeping my bag with me, since I still had some tissue left, I picked my way through the undergrowth toward the bushes.
“Oh, and watch out for poison ivy,” Angelo called after me.
I had no idea what poison ivy looked like. I just figured I wouldn’t put my backside down in any undergrowth.
Feeling hideously self-conscious, and certain a sudden horde of people would appear and catch me, even though we hadn’t seen a single soul yet, I worked down my jeans and managed to get into an awkward squat where I wasn’t going to pee on my clothes. Even the sound of the hot liquid hitting the ground beneath me made me want to curl up with embarrassment. I guessed I was going to have to get over this, though. If Angelo and I were going to be living in such close proximity for the foreseeable future, we were going to be forced to expose ourselves to these situations.
I wiped and pulled my jeans back up, careful to avoid the puddle I’d left, which was now quickly sinking into the forest floor.
I made my way back to where I’d left Angelo. He’d been busy, pulling out the contents of his bag to create a little area of bedding for us on the ground.
He turned to look over his shoulder at me as I approached. “Better?”
I nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
A smile tweaked his cheeks. “I thought you might have found a racehorse to pee for you over there.”
I realized he was teasing me about the length of time I’d been peeing for, or, to my horror, how loud I’d been. I swung my bag lightly, catching him on the shoulder. “Hey, that was hours’ and hours’ worth. I can’t just stop anywhere like you can.”
He laughed and raised his hand to defend himself. “Yes, you can, Kitty. We’re in the middle of nowhere. You can stop and take a piss wherever the hell you like. It doesn’t bother me
in the slightest.”
I’d probably been a bit self-conscious, but I felt better now, and stupidly happier despite, or perhaps because of, his teasing.
He got onto the ground and put his arms out to me. Feeling like a little girl again, I happily climbed into them. We lay back, my head pillowed on his chest. The day was warm, and insects buzzed and birds tweeted above our heads. I closed my eyes, and Angel stroked my hair, and within minutes I was asleep.
“HEY.”
I jerked awake at the strange male voice. My eyes shot open, and I scrambled to sitting.
Two men in orange jackets stood over us.
Angel woke, too. He immediately reached beneath the rolled-up shirt we’d been using as a pillow and pulled out his gun and pointed it at the two men. I hadn’t even known he’d put the gun there.
“Whoa, now,” said the first man. Both were in their fifties—one with a stomach that strained at his shirt and looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days, and the other was slimmer, but with a beard that hung down the front of his chin. Both men also held guns—the kind with the long barrel—but neither lifted their weapons to defend themselves.
Angelo jumped to his feet, placing himself between me and the men. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“Hey, man,” the guy with the gut said. “We don’t want anything. We just saw the two of you asleep all the way out here and wanted to check that everything was okay.”
Angelo faltered and the gun drooped. “Oh, right. Sure.”
The skinny man frowned toward me. He looked like he’d either lost a lot of weight recently, or liked to buy bigger clothes, as they hung off his frame. “Are you okay, Miss? Is everything all right here?”
The guy probably thought I’d been kidnapped or something. It was kind of ironic that we were actually running from the person who’d held me hostage my whole life.
I got to my feet and stepped forward, taking hold of Angelo’s arm, clinging to him like we were an old-fashioned couple in a book. “We’re fine, thank you. We were just taking a hike and we got... distracted.”
The two men exchanged a glance. We clearly weren’t equipped for hiking, but we were also both adults, and despite looking a bit odd, hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Well, apart from the gun Angelo was holding, but it wasn’t as though the two men who’d woken us weren’t armed as well.
I squeezed Angelo’s arm, trying to get him to back off. These two weren’t looking to do us any harm, and I knew his instinct was to protect me, but he was going to cause more problems if we weren’t careful.
Angelo cleared his throat, and his biceps relaxed under my grip. “Yeah, we were just taking a walk and we got a bit lost.”
The men exchanged another glance.
“Sure,” the skinny guy said. “You want to know your way back to town?”
I offered a winning smile. “That would be great, thanks.”
The bigger guy frowned, clearly still not comfortable with the situation. “You want us to call someone for you?”
Angelo shook his head. “Nah, we’re good walking.”
“Okay, well, keep heading north-east for three or four miles, and you’ll hit Fremington.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “Will you be all right from there?”
“Yeah, fine. Thanks,” Angelo said. “We’ll be on our way now.”
We both bent and gathered up our belongings, shoving the rolled-up clothes that we’d used as bedding back into the bags. I could tell the two men knew something wasn’t quite right, but they didn’t make any move to stop us. What could they do? They were just two guys—it wasn’t as though they could arrest us.
“Right, we’ll leave you to it, then,” the skinny one said, and I gave them a tight smile and Angelo lifted a hand in a wave.
“Thanks for your help,” he called back.
We hurriedly threw our bags on our backs, and then Angelo grabbed my hand and we set off again. The men had headed in the other direction, but I could feel them glancing back at us as they walked away, probably wondering if they’d done the right thing by letting us go.
“You think they’ll report us?” I asked, keeping my voice down, just in case they were still within hearing distance.
“I don’t know. Possibly. If my father has anyone on the local police force, they’re going to know it was us right away. How many other young couples are randomly wandering around a forest first thing in the morning?”
I bit my lower lip. My lips were dry, and I tugged at a loose piece of skin with my teeth. “Do you think that’s likely—that he’ll have someone in the police department, I mean?”
“Maybe not in that particular town’s department, but he’ll definitely have cops on his payroll. It’s how he’s kept the compound going for so many years without any outside interference. The men on his payroll will have been instructed to keep their ears to the ground and let him know if anyone who meets our description had been spotted.” Angel drew to a halt. “Fuck. Maybe I shouldn’t have let those two men walk away.”
Alarm shot through me. “What are you talking about?”
“We could have gotten to the town and found a motel and lain low for a while, but now there’s a chance my father will find out where we are. We’re going to have to keep moving. We don’t have a choice. But if we’d taken those two men down, they wouldn’t have had the chance to tell anyone about us.”
I widened my eyes. “We can’t just kill two innocent men!”
He glowered down at me. “If it means your life, or theirs, I’m choosing yours every time.”
“Well, I’m not! I’m a nobody. They might have had families—wives and kids. I won’t have innocent people dying because of me, Angel. I mean it.”
He took hold of my hand, and pulled me in for a kiss. “Okay, no killing anyone,” he said. “But only if they’re not threatening you directly. If someone looks like they’re going to hurt you, don’t expect me to just stand by and do nothing.”
“I won’t.” I squeezed his fingers. “And, Angel?”
“Yes?”
“I kind of like that you’d be willing to kill to protect me.”
“I’ll do anything for you, Kitty. Anything at all.”
Chapter Five
Present Day
WE KEPT WALKING.
The sun rose higher in the sky. We were almost out of water now, and we needed to reach the town soon. I’d always had a pretty good sense of direction, or at least I thought I’d had, but now I was starting to doubt myself.
Catalina nudged me with her elbow. “Hey, what’s that?”
I frowned, peering through the trees. Sure enough, there appeared to be something ahead of us. “Let’s keep going, but be cautious.”
I reached out and took her hand again. She looked up at me with such utter trust in her eyes my heart broke a little. What if something happened to her? What if my father caught up with us? I was terrified I’d end up letting her down.
Hand in hand, we crept through the trees until we were face to face with the thing that had caught our attention. It was a tall, chain-link fence, and it looked to be surrounding someone’s yard.
Movement came rushing toward us, and I yanked Catalina back. A sudden burst of barking cut through the air, and we both jumped.
“Jesus, it’s only a goddamned dog.” I tugged her away from where a large hound was now barking at us from behind the fence. I didn’t want the owners coming out to see what was going on.
“Do you think this might be the start of the town?” she asked me.
“Yeah, I think so.”
We traversed the fence and the rest of the property, only to come across another house and then another. We found ourselves on a road with a couple of trucks parked along it, and no sidewalk.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet. Try to act casual, and we’ll see how things play out.”
If it wasn’t for the two hunters seeing us earlier that day, I’d be celebrating a
bout now. I’d be planning for us to find a room somewhere and get some rest. Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to let my guard down completely—not knowing that my father, and by now Elliot Torres as well, would be looking for us—but with a locked door and many miles between us, we could have at least taken a breather. Now, however, I didn’t dare for us to stop. Even though we were both exhausted, we had to keep moving. It wasn’t worth the risk.
A woman walking another dog—this one far smaller, but just as yappy—approached us.
“Smile,” I hissed at Catalina. “Say good morning.”
We had to look as happy and relaxed as possible so we didn’t stand out on anyone’s radar. People who were stressed and anxious always got noted in someone’s memory more than someone who just smiled and said good morning, so that was exactly what I did.
“How big do you think the town is?” Catalina asked when we’d put some distance between ourselves and the dog walker. “Big enough to get lost in?”
“I don’t know. Hopefully it’s larger rather than smaller.”
If the town was bigger, we wouldn’t stand out so much either. Small towns knew when they had strangers in their midst, and they didn’t like it. I held back the urge to tap and count as my anxiety about being around people again started to grow. It wouldn’t help us if I looked like a crazy person walking down the street.
The place began to get more built up, the buildings with less space between them. We passed a gas station on the corner of one junction. More cars went by, as did a number of pedestrians. Catalina clung tighter to my side, her eyes wide. This was the first time she’d been out in a town, and never would have seen so many buildings, cars, and people all in one place. I remembered how it had been for me the first time, too, but it had been easier for me then. I’d still been a child and had been with my father, who I trusted not to let anyone hurt me. The only person allowed to lay a finger on me was him. Besides, children were more easily adaptable than adults.
Did Catalina trust me to protect her from all these strangers, too? Or did she understand that it wasn’t the strangers we needed to worry about?
Unbound for Him Page 3