UnHinge Me (Savage Beast MC #6) - Hayley Faiman Page 0,114
to get out of this clubhouse and compound. The only hope for survival, to stay together, to get home is to leave before these monsters get ahold of us, separate us, and torture us.
There is a knock on the window. Both of our heads whip toward that direction. I gulp at the same time Trista reaches for my hand and squeezes.
“We can do this,” she rasps. “We can.”
I nod, though I’m not as confident as she appears. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to fake this until we make it, at least until she makes it. If I don’t, then Mountain will be okay. He has his brothers; he has his club. He will be okay without me. I repeat myself over and over again, a mantra of sorts.
Trista stands and makes her way over to the window. Slowly, she tugs it open and lets out a sigh when it shifts upward. Standing, I walk over to her and watch as she sticks her head out, looking from left to right.
“It’s clear,” she whispers, sounding almost surprised.
I watch as she throws one leg over the side of the frame, then the other. I kind of wish she would ditch me and just run, but she doesn’t. Trista holds her hands out for me and helps me slide over the side as well. Before we run, we slide the window back into place.
“We need to stick to the shadows, just in case,” she whispers.
Looking to the left, I see the exit gate and wish that we could just slip through that instead of going into an unknown forest area at night. Taking Trista’s hand, she squeezes me once and I squeeze her back before we start to walk.
Our legs move swiftly, our bodies hunched down to make ourselves as small as possible. We do exactly what Jaguar told us to do, though why we’re trusting him, I don’t know. The way they talked, he’d betrayed the Savage Beasts once before. What’s to stop him from doing it again?
The edge of the property comes into view. There is a small fence that will be easy to climb over. Trista reaches for the fence, throwing herself over it quickly. She holds her arms out for me, but I hesitate.
“Come on. I got you, just go slowly,” she whispers.
Lifting my foot, I shove the toe of my shoe in the chain link, before I throw my leg over. It takes a little finagling and a whole lot of moaning, but I eventually make my way over the fencing.
“What now?” I ask, looking behind me to the clubhouse.
There isn’t a lot of hurried movement, so I can assume that we’re still safe for now, and our absence has gone unnoticed so far.
“Now? We run,” she rasps.
“In woods where we’re totally alone. Sounds smart,” I deadpan.
Trista lets out a huff. “Do you have any other ideas?”
My lips curve up into a grin. “No,” I say with a small chuckle. “Let’s go.”
The forest is dark, it’s cold, and it’s damp, but it doesn’t matter because we are free. I don’t know how long this freedom of ours will last, but every second feels like a gift. We don’t speak, I know that I’m too scared that my voice will carry, that the men will hear us and come after us.
“Do we try to find a road?” Trista asks after a while of walking.
I look up, then glance behind me. “So you know every scary movie I’ve ever seen, the people always get picked up by the bad guys on the road,” I murmur.
“Oh shit, that’s true. Okay, no road.”
“No road,” I agree.
“Maybe we can just be a few feet from the road, but follow its path?” she asks.
“That could work,” I mumble.
It’s not like these roads are heavily driven, we’re somewhere in the California mountains, so I have no doubt that it’s a bit desolate out here. There is a clearing up ahead and I see the roadway.
“There’s the road. I really hope we’re headed south,” I breathe.
“Me too,” she whispers. “I do not want to end up somewhere in Oregon, we need to head closer to south. My dad is in California. He could probably be here in a few hours if we could get to a phone.”
We don’t speak again for a while. We’re both breathing heavily, the climate being nothing that we’re used to. I decide to start with some small talk. I need to keep my mind from wandering, I need to be distracted.