Rules of Survival

by Jus Accardo

  Shaun snorted. The footsteps stopped. “Well, maybe he actually met her?”

  Patrick clucked his tongue. “Watch it, kid. That’s how it starts—before you know—”

  I willed my body to move. Cough. Twitch. Anything to keep conscious. But their words grew faint and I was being pulled away again.

  …

  The next time I woke up, I could actually feel my body—which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. My head ached, my wrists were sore, and my throat felt scratchy. That would teach me to scream like an idiot.

  I took stock of everything, wiggling my fingers, toes, and neck in turn. Things seemed to be in working order. The only limb that felt slightly off was my left hand. The fingers were numb. Pins and needles like they were on the verge of falling asleep.

  Everything was a little blurry at first when I opened my eyes. A mesh of watery colors and vaguely detailed shapes dancing circles in front of my face. I was lying on my back on a bed, but when I tried to roll over, something on my left side stopped me. “What the—”

  “Hey, hey, hey—don’t pull. You’ll break it.” At first I thought he meant my arm, but then he added, “Don’t wanna lose the room deposit.”

  I twisted to see Shaun standing over me, scowling. A chunk of hair fell into his eyes and he blew absently at it. “Where are we?”

  The bed dipped as he sank down on the edge. “Hotel.”

  The light coming in from the window was bright. Early morning. “How long have we been here?”

  Shaun shrugged. “You’ve been asleep almost a day.”

  “An entire day?” I cried. Not good.

  I scanned the room. It seemed like it was just him and me. Good. That was one good thing. One less person to deal with meant a better chance at escape. “Patrick?”

  “Had an errand to run. He’ll be back shortly.”

  I twisted back around to my left side to see what the problem was, and let out a surprised yelp. They’d cuffed my arm to the headboard. Wait. Not cuffs, really. The chain was too long. Shackles. They’d used leg shackles!

  “Pat wanted to leave the cuffs on,” Shaun said with a wink. “I convinced him these would be a little more comfortable. You can thank me later.”

  Thank him later? I wanted to suggest we switch places—then he could tell me how comfortable this was—but decided that wasn’t the tack I needed to take. I batted my eyes, remembering his reaction to my crocodile tears, and put on my best helpless kitten expression. “My arm is really sore…do you think you could uncuff me for a few minutes?”

  “Seriously? You just head bashed me and now you’re trying to play the femme fatale card?” He rolled his eyes and stood. “Do I look like I ride the short bus?”

  Shit. “Please?” I tried again. I even forced a little smile. “Look, I’m scared, okay?”

  He folded his arms. “No dice. I uncuff you and you bolt. Pat will skin me alive.”

  “No. Really. I promise I’ll be good. I won’t try to run—”

  “And I’m Satan.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” I huffed, letting go of the charade.

  Of course he wouldn’t buy it. Mom always said innocent was the one look I couldn’t pull off. I stretched my neck, tilting my head to the side. It was pounding.

  “You knocked me out,” I complained. “My head is killing me. Got any aspirin?”

  “Technically you knocked yourself out,” he replied with a laugh. It was a shame the guy was a dick. Besides being easy on the eyes, he had a great laugh. Infectious. It did funny things to my stomach. “And sorry, no aspirin. Patrick went to check things out. He seems like a hard-ass, but he’s a good guy. He won’t deliver you to Jaffe if he thinks the guy’s going to hurt you. Promise.”

  His promises meant shit to me. “No, he’ll just deliver me to the police. So I can burn for a crime I didn’t commit.”

  Shaun shrugged. “If you’re innocent, then they’ll figure it out.”

  I stared. Was anyone really that naive? “Of course they will. And rainbows are likely to shoot from my ass. Then, later, leprechauns are going to offer me a big fat pot of gold and a bottomless blueberry smoothie.”

  He blinked. “Blueberry smoothie? That’s sick.”

  Sick? Was he crazy? “You have no taste—” Why was I arguing with this guy? His voice. It was totally his voice. It was deep with a hint of something dark and rugged. Despite the fact that he had me cuffed to the bed, I liked the sound of it. Plus, it was better than silence any day. “You’re going to get me killed.”

  He rolled his eyes and stood. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

  “I’ve got a news flash for you, Boy Scout. Someone already hurt me.” There was an edge of desperation to my voice, and even though Mom taught me to be tough, I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to die. “Someone murdered my mom. And now they’re after me. Every minute you idiots keep me here is another minute shaved off my life. I hope to hell you can live with my blood on your hands.”

  “There you go again with the dramatic.” He settled in a chair across the room and picked up a paperback.

  “And there you go again with the jackass,” I countered. As far as comebacks went, it was lame. I must have hit my head harder than I thought.

  I was ignored as he focused on the book. It was insulting. At least if you were going to chain a girl to a bed, have the decency to acknowledge her.

  “Is that—” I pulled against my restraints to get a closer look. “Is that Shakespeare? Are you reading Shakespeare?”

  He peered over the edge of the book and cocked a brow. “You a fan?”

  “I’m not much of a reader. I’m just surprised you can understand it. Is it the picture book edition?”

  He set the novel down on the table and glared at me. Even with the annoyed twist of his lips and scrunched-up brows, he was striking. “Are you always this mean?”

  “Asks the guy who has a strange girl chained to his hotel bed?”

  “Noted,” he said. That chunk of dark hair fell back across his eyes. He ignored it, focusing on me instead. Suddenly it was like I was the only thing in the room. The weight of his gaze made my stomach tighten and sent chills up and down my arms. It was an unfamiliar feeling—not good, but not necessarily bad, either. After a moment, voice soft, he said, “Can I ask you a question?”

  I rattled the shackles as heat rushed to my cheeks, the words slipping from my lips in a barely there whisper. “Nothing I can do to stop you.”

  “You’ve managed to avoid the authorities, and from what I can gather from Pat, more than a few hunters, for almost a year now. You’re obviously sharp. Why make such a stupid mistake now?”

  I hadn’t known what to expect, but somehow, I was disappointed. The way he’d been looking at me, the intensity of his stare—we’d shared a moment. Or maybe not. Maybe I was just a girl sucked in by a pretty face. One who wouldn’t know a moment if it bit her in the ass. Maybe I’d been hoping that if he liked looking at me so much, I could bat my eyes, wiggle my ass, and get him to set me free. “You mean coming back to the cabin, I assume?”

  He nodded.

  “I went back for something.”

  “You went back for something? You had to know there was a good chance the police were watching the place. What could be so important?”

  Mom would be mortified—she lived her life on a need-to-know basis—but I decided to go with a thin version of the truth. It couldn’t hurt at this point. The damage was already done. “I wasn’t sure.”

  “Weren’t sure?” he repeated, leaning forward. “You went back to the scene of a murder—one you’re accused of committing—and you’re not sure why?”

  “I just told you why. What I wasn’t sure about was what.”

  Shaun sagged back in the chair and folded his arms. He wasn’t huge, but you could tell from his arms that he worked out. Solid definition and tight lines. God. I was a sucker for arms… “Because that makes so much more sense?”

  “The short version is, I w
ent back to clear my name. I had reason to believe my mom left something at the cabin that would tell me who really killed her.”

  He considered this, then tilted his head to the side, interested. “And the long version?”

  “A little over two months ago, I was in Texas just minding my own business. These guys caught up to me—I thought they were hunters at first, but they were hard-core. Violent.” I shimmied around on the bed so I could reach the edge of my T-shirt with my free hand. Tugging it up an inch, I said, “One of them stabbed me.”

  Shaun was on his feet and across the room in three long strides. He inspected the scar with clinical interest, falling just short of poking me several times to see if it was authentic. “He stabbed you?”

  I rolled my eyes and pulled down the shirt. “Is there a parrot in here? Yes. He stabbed me.” It hadn’t been a bad wound—the guy’s aim sucked and I got lucky—but the intention had been clear.

  He dragged the chair close to the bed and gestured for me to continue.

  I used his earlier analogy—because really, it was pretty perfect. “He was aiming to make a corpse, not a capture.”

  Shaun’s right eye narrowed while the left brow rose slightly. Suspicion. One of the lessons Patrick obviously failed to teach this guy was to never take anything at face value. He clearly didn’t think little old me could have possibly escaped a situation like that. “So what happened? How did you get away?”

  “He had me cornered. We were on top of an overpass on the highway and I jumped. Landed in the back of a construction truck. I knew some people in the area, got help, and ran like hell.”

  He didn’t try to hide his skepticism. “Oh, is that all? Sounds nice and easy.”

  “It wasn’t,” I snapped. He was beginning to piss me off. I didn’t deal well with condescending. “It was one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever had to do. Trust me, that’s saying a lot.”

  “Okay…fine. You got away. But that doesn’t tell me why you went back to the cabin.”

  “I know my mom was no angel.” The letter mentioned getting information to someone. But what—and who? I’d lost it before getting to the key parts. It mentioned being wanted for murder, and I had a feeling whatever was on that page proved she was innocent—and probably named the real killer. I’d bet my fingers it was the same person who’d killed her. And the same person trying to kill me. It was mostly theory, since I’d lost the letter, but it was all I had to go on. “I’m not stupid. One of the jobs she got mixed up in got her killed. Somewhere along the line, she screwed up covering her tracks.”

  “And you thought you’d find what—evidence at the cabin? The police were all over that place. I hate to say it, but the stuff they found points to you.”

  “I know there’s no crime scene evidence. All that crap is long gone. But Mom knew someone was coming. We only went back to that cabin when things got hot. Just before—” I swallowed the lump creeping up my throat and blinked back a rush of involuntary tears. I would not cry in front of this guy. I would not. “Just before she died, she told me to come back when it was safe. That she’d left me something.” There was more to it than that, but it was none of his business.

  His eyes widened. “Did you find— That paper…the one you almost got your head shot off trying to get. That was it, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but I blew it. I knew from day one that I had to go back to clear my name, but I was biding my time until it was safe. After those guys tried to cut me down in Texas, though, it really sank in.”

  “What did?”

  “I’ve been running for a year now by myself. I’m tired and I’m getting sloppy. I needed to find a way to end this before it ended me. I risked everything to go back, and I lost the damn letter.” I rattled the chain. “I failed.”

  He actually looked sympathetic. “Maybe not. Maybe there’s another way?”

  “I’m as good as dead without it. I can’t prove I didn’t kill my mom, and if I can’t prove it wasn’t me, then I can’t get the real killer off my back—not that any of that matters now.” I pinned him with my best evil glare. “You know, since you bozos are going to hand me over to the killer.”

  He rolled his eyes again. “So what did it say? The letter?”

  “I didn’t get to read much of it, but I do remember seeing a name. Mick. And another name. It began with a T—didn’t see the rest of it.”

  Curiosity turned to skepticism. He slouched forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “That’s it?”

  “That’s it,” I lied.

  “And I’m guessing you don’t know who this Mick guy is?”

  “No idea.” I twisted my arms and wiggled my fingers. The feeling was nearly gone from the left ones. “Could you please undo this? I can’t feel my hand anymore. I swear I won’t run. I don’t even know where we are.”

  “You just got finished telling me someone stabbed you and you hopped off a bridge to get away.”

  “Overpass.”

  “Whatever.” He stood, frowning. “Somehow I doubt a little thing like lack of location knowledge would stop you from getting away.”

  He was smart—I’d give him that. And it would have been an admirable trait if it wasn’t getting in the way of my escape. “Okay, you have a point, but—”

  Shaun’s hand shot out and covered my mouth. After I got over his audacity, I did the first thing that came to mind. I bit him. He jumped and cursed quietly, turning back to me with a look of pure shock. I was about to tell him he got what he deserved when I heard it. The faintest rattle. Clinking metal. The kind of noise a doorknob made when someone was trying to quietly open a door—or pick the lock.

  He removed his hand and held a finger up to his lips. I nodded, twisting around to tug furiously—although quietly—on the cuffs again as he tiptoed toward the door.

  “Is that the pizza?” Shaun called out. He crept across the room and peered through the peephole. After a minute, he turned to me and mouthed, “Someone’s blocking it.”

  When I had no luck freeing the cuffs from the bedpost, I pointed furiously at them as Shaun made his way back from the door. “You have to uncuff me!” I snarled.

  He made a slicing motion across his neck, then held a finger up to his lips for a moment before calling out, “Gimme one sec. I’ll be right there.”

  The rattling stopped.

  “Cash only, right? Just looking for my wallet.” He jammed a hand into his pocket. Out came a small silver object. The shackle key. In one smooth move he had the cuff on the bed undone—and redone.

  Clasped onto his own wrist.

  I stared down at our joined hands in horror, about to scream, when something hit the door. Hard. A second later, again. Whoever was out there was done waiting.

  “Shit,” Shaun cursed, scanning the room.

  “Window?” I said, tugging him away from the door.

  “We’re on the third floor.”

  “Are you serious? You always get a ground-floor room. Always. You two suck at this!”

  “Sorry, it was all they had. And we didn’t expect company,” he barked. “You’re so fucking smart, what now?”

  There weren’t a lot of choices. Charging out the door wasn’t an option. If these were the same guys from the cabin—which I was betting all ten little piggies they were—they had guns. “Screw the third floor. Window. There has to be a window!”

  “The bathroom has one, I think. It’s small, though.”

  I looked from him to the door, then yanked hard on the shackle chain. “Fine. Let’s stay here then.”

  He mumbled something obnoxious, but it was lost to the noise outside as he dragged me in the direction of the bathroom. They’d given up picking the lock and had settled for busting down the door. The noise would bring the hotel staff—and eventually the police—but we’d be long gone by then.

  Or more likely, dead.

  Shaun shoved me into the tiny bathroom and locked the door behind us. I couldn’t imagine what help he thought it was going
to be. A locked door obviously wasn’t an effective deterrent for these people. But, hey…maybe it made him feel safer.

  I turned to the shower, ripped aside the curtain, and cringed. There was a window, but small was an understatement. It was one of those vanity windows. There mostly for show and ventilation.

  Shaun shook his head. “There’s no way I’m going to fit through that…”

  “Yes you are,” I said, yanking him forward.

  I stepped into the tub and threw open the window. Mom always said that survival was eight parts following the rules, one part skill, and one part luck. Thankfully—or on the off chance you were me, unthankfully—that one part luck was with me at that particular moment. Down on the ground, below our bathroom window was the hotel’s heated swimming pool.

  A wave of nausea washed over me. Water. I would have preferred to take my chances jumping onto concrete from seven stories up than jumping into water. I’d almost drowned when I was six. Water was my kryptonite. “Shit.”

  “What?” Shaun snapped, pushing me aside to peer out the window. He looked both ways, then pulled his head back inside. “What’s wrong?”

  I hated the terror in my voice. Mom taught me to be strong. To do the things that needed to be done. Fear or not, you pushed through because the alternative wasn’t really an option. But this… “Water. The pool. I can’t—”

  He was looking at me like I was crazy. “There’s a ledge. We can make it to another room. We’re not jumping!”

  I nodded looked down. Ledge. Another room. That sounded like a good idea to me. Why the hell hadn’t I seen that? I pushed out the screen. It fell to the ground and landed in the bushes below.

  With a deep breath, I tugged on the shackles. “Hurry up and undo these.”

  Shaun nodded, frantically digging into his pocket. “Um…”

  Panic welled inside my chest. “Please tell me um is code for right away!”

  He peered over his shoulder at the door, and when he turned back, his face was pale. “I lost the key.”

  “You lost the—” This wasn’t happening. First the water, now I had to climb out a window and scale a micro-thin ledge shackled to one of the guys trying to send me to jail? “Fine. We’re climbing out together then. Help me up…”