Free Make Me Say It by Beth Kery

could keep Harper temporarily safe while he determined if Emmitt had picked up their trail.
    Harper noisily plopped down on the earth next to him. At least her lack of grace wasn’t as important now that they’d reached the cave. Either Emmitt would fall for Jake’s false trail in the direction of Poplar Gorge, or he wouldn’t. If he picked up their trail to the cave, Harper could be as silent as a flea, and Emmitt would still find them.
    During their flight through the woods, Harper hadn’t seemed to have any idea what Jake meant about moving through the woods like a ghost. How could Jake ask her not to make the grass rustle or bend, or twigs break beneath her feet?
    She had no idea of what it meant to be prey.
    Given the racket she’d made approaching him just now, there’d been time to duck behind the rocks and avoid her. Was it what he’d done back at Emmitt’s, his fear of being caught . . . or his fascination with Harper McFadden that kept him fixed in place? He was too weary to figure it out. He continued to wash his hands in the cool waterfall when she came and sat beside him.
    They’d washed and dressed her cut wrists earlier. The white of the bandages flickered in the light of the small camp lantern. He was highly distracted by the feeling of her knee brushing against his lower leg. Half in dread and half in anticipation, he waited for her to speak.
    But she didn’t.
    Instead, her small, warm hands surrounded his wrists. He stiffened at her touch, but didn’t resist when she gently pulled his hands out of the streaming water. When she released him, he sat back on his haunches, his wet hands leaking onto his jean-covered thighs.
    “Your hands aren’t going to get any cleaner,” she stated dryly.
    He raised his hands to his face, palms facing him, and peered at them closely. His fingertips were as wrinkled as prunes from being underwater so long.
    “What’d you do, Jake?” He heard her whisper from the darkness. “What did you do when you went back to your uncle’s?”
    He lowered his hands and braced them on his thighs, rocking back and forth slightly.
    “I killed Mrs. Roundabout.”
    “Who’s Mrs. Roundabout?”
    He was surprised and relieved that she didn’t gasp in horror at his confession. She’d asked the question quickly and calmly.
    “My dog,” Jake answered dully. “Emmitt didn’t think she was my dog. But she was. Not that I owned her. Not like that. She was just . . .”
My friend.
He didn’t say the thought out loud. Harper probably already thought he was a stupid hillbilly. “My dog, that’s all,” he repeated lamely. He lowered his head and studied his knees. “All the dogs on Emmitt’s property are bought for the fights, so Emmitt thought Mrs. Roundabout was his. She wasn’t, though.”
    “Fights?”
    “Yeah. Dogfights. Men bet on a dog to win in the ring.”
    “How do they win?” Harper asked, sounding puzzled.
    “By taking down the other dog with its teeth and claws, injuring it until it can’t get up and fight anymore. Sometimes by killing it.”
    “And . . . and people bet on it?
Watch
it?” she asked, her bewilderment and dawning distaste obvious.
    “Yeah. They root on their dog. The one they bet on.”
    She didn’t say anything for several seconds while Jake steeped in his foulness. His dirtiness. She had no knowledge of the things he’d seen, of the brutality he’d witnessed and taken part of, even if unwillingly.
    “Why’d you kill her?” He winced at the word “kill” coming out of her mouth.
    “Because my uncle made her fight, and she got hurt real bad. I was trying to doctor her, but she wasn’t getting better. She was in a lot of pain. Suffering. Since I was leaving with you, I didn’t have any choice.”
    “How’d you do it?” she whispered.
    “I gave her a lethal dose of the sedative. She’ll just have gone to sleep.” He sniffed and swiped at his cheeks. They were wet. He hated that she witnessed how weak he was. He