AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She dragged in a shaky breath and let it out slowly, tears welling in her eyes.
A feeling of utter aloneness threatened to overwhelm her.
She didn’t have time to feel sorry for herself when she still had work to do.
PJ ran to the room where Mud had been. She needed to make the fight look real enough for the TCW leaders to believe she’d tried to stop Judge from taking Mud. She had to look like she’d put up a good fight.
Balling her fist, she hit the wall behind the door hard enough to bruise and bloody her knuckles. It was a start, but she needed more.
She bit down hard on her lip, breaking the skin. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.
Her last injury had to be good. She grabbed the IV pole, closed her eyes and slammed it as hard as she could against her forehead above her left eye.
Pain ripped through her. She swayed and sat down hard on the floor as warm liquid dripped down the side of her face.
A door opened in another part of the infirmary and slammed shut.
PJ quietly lay on her side, closed her eyes and feigned unconsciousness.
The sound of footsteps moved toward her and stopped.
A hand touched her arm. “PJ, you’re a terrible actress,” Bones’ voice said softly. “Your eye is twitching, and you’re breathing is erratic. No one will believe you’re unconscious.” He leaned closer. “I can give you something that will make it look real.”
She looked up into Bones’ face. Being knocked out for real scared her more than she cared to admit. If she were unconscious, she wouldn’t know what happened to Judge and Mud until she came to. But what other choice did she have? “Do it.”
He left the room and returned with a syringe.
As he jabbed the needle into her arm, her last thought was of Judge and how his lips had felt against hers.
Chapter 9
Every step Judge took away from PJ was another stab to his heart. If he hadn’t been carrying the sick teen, he would have grabbed PJ and carried her away with him.
Instead, he followed her directions, running through the pouring rain to the motor pool. He passed through the building and out to the yard where the vehicles were parked.
Once he’d settled the unconscious teen on the backseat floorboard, he leaned the front passenger seat forward so he could keep an eye on Mud. Then he climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the key.
Part of him didn’t want the engine to start. If it did, he’d have to drive away, leaving PJ behind to explain how he’d gotten away.
The engine started immediately. Squaring his shoulders, he shifted into drive, gunned the accelerator and burst through the chain link fence onto the road leading out of camp,
He left the lights off, relying on the flashes of lightning to illuminate the way.
As the truck neared the gate, two guards appeared with semi-automatic rifles.
One of the guards held a flashlight, swinging it back and forth, shining it into the truck’s windshield.
Judge ducked low behind the steering wheel and slammed his foot onto the accelerator, sending the truck blasting forward.
Like an orchestra playing the grand crescendo, rain drummed the roof of the truck, thunder roared with each flash of lightning and bullets pierced the windshield and pinged against the truck’s body.
Judge kept the accelerator all the way down, his head barely above the dash.
The guards fired until the truck was almost on them. Then they leaped to the side as the truck crashed through the gate and sped down the dirt road away from them.
More bullets hit the back of the truck and the rear windshield, but they’d made it through.
Judge didn’t slow until he reached the pavement of a state highway. He slammed on the brakes and turned right, heading south to Kalispell, driving as fast as he could safely in the storm. He committed the odometer miles to memory so that he'd know how far the turnoff was from Kalispell when he returned.
