Free Ultimate Escape by Lydia Rowan Page A

some of his strength.
    The click of Saint slamming the magazine into the gun he’d pulled from seemingly nowhere filled the small confines of the car. And it was quickly followed by others as Cruz loaded several more weapons.
    “Argh!” Nola exclaimed, reaching for the door handle, her stomach dropping as Ace cranked the wheel hard to the left, rotating the car one hundred eighty degrees. Before it had settled completely, he slammed on the gas, approaching the truck at an ever-increasing speed.
    Though muffled, Nola couldn’t mistake the first and then second and then third little crack that she’d come to recognize as gunfire.
    “What are you doing?” she called when Cruz lowered the window and reached out, shooting with the same practiced ease he’d had at the hotel.
    “Duck!” Cruz screamed.
    Nola was stunned, but when Saint lowered his window and began firing, she scrambled, pressing herself to the floorboards. She cried out again when she heard a thud , and then thought she might lose the contents of her stomach when the vehicle lurched.
    “We’re down two tires,” Cruz called. “Aren’t going to go too much longer. Let’s make this count.”
    The men began firing more rapidly, the vehicle rocking unsteadily.
    “Nola,” Cruz called, “when we stop, get out and run.”
    She heard him, but rejected his words. There was no way she was getting out of this car.
    “Do you hear me?” he called.
    His voice cut through her frantic thoughts like a laser, the tone like a lighthouse, a beacon in the foggy chaos.
    “Y-yes,” she responded.
    And then, suddenly, the vehicle stopped. The men wasted no time jumping out, and when Nola looked up, she saw Saint standing facing the road, the mean-looking gun he pointed only enhancing his aura of menace.
    “Out!”
    Cruz’s voice again pulled Nola’s attention, and she scrambled to comply, getting out of the car, some of her dizziness receding when her feet hit the red-brown dirt of the hard-packed ground.
    “Run, Nola!” Cruz said.
    His voice had a strain of urgency that she had never heard. But she was frozen, unsure of what to do. Couldn’t imagine leaving him.
    “Go!”
    His voice, sharp, firm, spurred her, and she turned and ran toward a thick copse of trees. She looked back, saw him face away, squared, waiting for the green truck that approached.
    He turned, and she caught his eye.
    “Go! And don’t look back!”
    Something in his eye and his voice begged her to comply, so she did. It was nearly impossible to listen and not see, but she kept her gaze ahead, ran with all the strength in her body.
    And she didn’t look back.
    Not even when she heard the rat-ta-tat-tat of gunshots.
    ••••
    Night was falling quickly, and Nola was alone in the jungle, completely lost.
    When she’d heard the shots, three, then four, then so many that she couldn’t count them, she had run faster, harder, moving ever deeper into the thick foliage. The vegetation was thick, and only got thicker with each step, so thick and tall she got slower and slower as she fought with the underbrush.
    And every moment, with every step, she imagined whatever menace had lurked in that green truck catching up with her, every breaking branch, every shuddering leaf igniting a new round of fear. But she continued, Cruz’s voice, the pleading in his eyes, making her advance.
    But what she didn’t do was let herself think about what had happened as she’d run out of sight. Cruz was strong, the strongest person she’d ever known. He’d made it. He had to.
    There was no other alternative.
    So she trudged on, moving farther and farther away from the road. All signs of civilization had long faded, but she focused on moving, ignored the thick, humid air, the sweat that covered her body, the aching tug in her tired limbs. Cruz would have done the same, and so would she. And in the days since she’d first set foot on that plane, she’d done more than she’d ever thought herself capable of.