Free Out of This World by Jill Shalvis Page A

something?”
    â€œNot technically,” I muttered.
    Rachel shot me a look. “Yes, technically. We’re lost. L-O-S-T, lost. ”
    â€œNo prob.” Axel scratched his chest, looking around as if he had all the time in the world.
    I looked at Rachel. She looked right back. Was this really happening to us? Because it was getting hard to tell if this was real or just some crazy-ass nightmare.
    â€œAxel?” Rachel prompted after a full moment of silence.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œGet us out of here?”
    â€œOh. Right.” He turned and began to walk, then stopped. “No, not this way,” he muttered to himself, and did an about-face. “This way. Yeah.”
    Rachel reached for my hand as we went to follow him, and pulled me close so that she could whisper in my ear. “Maybe you should take off your shirt.”
    My stupid heart leaped. “What for?”
    â€œSo we can tear it into strips and tie pieces on branches to mark our way. Since our guide is as lost as we are.”
    â€œWe’re not lost.”
    She sent me a baleful look. “We are so lost.”
    Axel pointed to the bushes through which he’d come a moment ago. “There. Follow me.” And he vanished into them.
    Now that my erection was gone, I had enough blood to operate my brain again. And I was able to think that we hadn’t ducked through a bush to get here.
    â€œYeah, not going in there,” Rachel said, staring at the bushes as she backed herself into me. “No way.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œAxel?” she called out to the bush.
    No response, and she wriggled closer to me, which wasn’t so good for my thinking capabilities.
    â€œHe’s gone already,” she said. “He thinks we’re right behind him.” Grabbing my hand, she pulled me after her at a speed that was shocking given I’d had no idea she could even move that fast. “Rach—”
    â€œWe’re going around the bushes,” she said, still gripping my hand as if it were a lifeline. “There are…things in those bushes. Spiders, and creepy crawlies, and more spiders.”
    â€œOkaaay.”
    â€œAxel!” she called out as we rounded the bushes.
    I thought I heard him call back to us, and we followed his voice, but after a few twists and turns through the heavy growth with no sign of him, we stopped again.
    Rach sagged against the closest tree for one brief beat before letting out a soft cry and straightening away from the trunk as if it were possessed.
    But she was the possessed one.
    â€œOh my God.” Turning in a circle, she looked madly around the small clearing like a cornered animal, one hand over her mouth, her eyes wide and wild. “They’re everywhere!”
    â€œWhat’s everywhere?”
    â€œCreepy crawlies!”
    â€œRach?”
    She shook her head violently, holding up a hand to hold me off.
    Uh-oh. She’d cracked. She’d utterly lost it. I knew firsthand that she didn’t fall apart easily. She had an inner strength that got her through any hardship that came her way. I’d seen her struggle through a tough college curriculum while working full time to support herself; I’d seen her work like crazy to make it on her own in the art world; and I’d seen her go through the death of her father. She’d lived through them as she experienced everything else: with her spirit and strength intact.
    But she was at her limit here. That, or she’d hit her head harder than she’d let on. Fearing that, I stepped toward her, but she backed away. “Hey. Hey, are you okay?”
    â€œNo. No, I’m not okay. There’s… things out here, Kel. Rabid raccoons and crazy squirrels and gigantic bugs and…” She clamped her mouth shut. Still wet, she shivered.
    I took another step toward her, and she jerked.
    â€œIt’s just me,” I said in the voice I used with the dolphins when they were