Free Slow Burn: Bleed, Book 6 by Bobby Adair Page A

wondering which of them had also figured that out.
    Freitag glanced nervously over her shoulder. She was the only one of our captors that we could see.
    I waited. I focused on the rhythm of the waves. I turned to Murphy and caught his eye.
    He was up near the bow, furthest from the door, furthest from Freitag. I motioned toward Freitag with my eyes.
    With a barely perceptible motion, he nodded. He understood. More importantly, he agreed. He was smart, and he was intuitive. He knew what fate awaited us.
    Turning back, I noticed that Dalhover was staring at me. He’d caught the exchange between Murphy and me. He shot me a bare nod. He was on board, and his hands weren’t bound. We had a chance.
    Without any urgency, I turned slowly back to Freitag and fell into the rhythm of the waves.
    There would be no mercy this time. Not for her. Not for any of them.
    I felt a pattern in the waves. It seemed like one out of every eight or ten we hit was larger than the others and would bounce us all a little higher off of our seats. As we came over one of the big ones, I started counting the small ones. I was going to make my move on the next big wave.
    Freitag’s expressionless doll face made a change.
    I counted through two waves.
    She was troubled. Her forehead wrinkled, and her eyes seemed sad.
    Another wave.
    Another.
    Her left hand let go of her rifle’s barrel. My excitement ticked up a dozen notches, but I tried not to let it show.
    We bounced over another wave.
    Almost there.
    Freitag’s hand slid into her pocket.
    It was going to be easy, at least the Freitag part. Just a few more waves.
    The hand came back out of the pocket with a lock-blade knife.
    Before I formed a guess as to what she planned with the knife, she caught Dalhover’s eye and tossed it to him. She turned to me and said, “Don’t kill them.”
    I was dumbfounded.
    Dalhover opened the knife and bounced behind Murphy to cut his bonds.
    Freitag looked up over her shoulder. Just loud enough for us to hear, she said, “The boat will come to a stop soon. Hurry.”
    I turned in my seat so that Dalhover would have easy access to the wires binding my wrists. As soon as my hands were free, I was up on my feet. I stepped quickly over and put myself against the wall beside Freitag. Dalhover jumped to the spot on the other side. We weren’t visible from outside the cabin.
    “What is this?” I asked.
    She simply said, “Now we’re even, okay?”
    “Even?”
    “Yes,” she said. “So fuck you, too.”
    The boat’s motor quieted as the helmsman throttled down.
    I said, “Thank you.”
    Dalhover handed the knife to me and said to Freitag, “Give me the gun.”

Chapter 14
    Murphy was beside me before I knew he had moved.
    Dalhover had the rifle in his hands and was ready to spring. Freitag held her position with her back to the stairs.
    The engine noise had decreased to a low rumble, and the boat slowed to a drift.
    From above, I heard the sound of Jerry’s laugh. I smiled. He was about to be surprised.
    “Send ‘em up,” Jerry called.
    Freitag remained frozen, pretending not to hear.
    “Send ‘em up.” More loudly.
    Still, Freitag did not move.
    Footsteps sounded on the stairs above. “Can’t you hear me?”
    Dalhover swung around in front of Freitag, using her for a shield as he held the rifle over her shoulder, pointed up the stairs. His shout at Jerry to freeze was so loud that Jerry would have been startled into inaction, even had he not seen the rifle.
    I peeked around the corner. Jerry was indeed frozen, with surprise in his eyes and his mouth hanging open. He had a pistol in his hand, pointed down at the stairs. My machete hung from his other hand.
    “If you move even the slightest bit, you’re dead. You understand me?” Dalhover’s voice was frighteningly harsh. “If you think there’s any chance that I can miss blowing your head off from this range, you’re a fool. You got me, Jerry?”
    No one spoke, but feet were shuffling on the