Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Riff

I hadn't believed what I was seeing for a moment.

Because in what world did you happen into a shed during a shootout and find a woman chained to the floor wearing a filthy dress she clearly hadn't changed since spring or summer? So filthy, skeletal, and pale that there was no way she'd seen the outside of this shed in months?

But there was no denying that was what I saw.

She was a tiny thing.

Short and slight.

That fact was not helped by the fact that she'd clearly been starved, her skin clinging tightly to bones and not much else.

Her hair was tangled and greasy, hanging down to her shoulders in dark copper waves around a face that, even emaciated, was disturbingly beautiful. She was almost otherworldly pretty. Like a siren or a fairy or some shit like that with her delicate features, gray eyes, full, pouty lips, and a constellation of freckles over her pale skin.

I couldn't imagine how beautiful she must have been before she'd been taken, chained, abused, and starved to near death.

Surviving in the woods for a day or two until it was safe to make it toward the roads again would be bad enough alone. And I was in good physical condition with a reasonably warm outfit on. But doing so with a woman who looked a stone's throw from death? That was not going to be easy.

It wasn't like I had a choice in the matter, though. Only a monster would leave her to this fate.

So I pulled her through that window, and we took off.

I couldn't slow down for her. Not at first. Not even as I heard the gasping way she was trying to catch her breath, could hear her whimpers as her deconditioned body struggled to keep up.

We were too close to the house.

If the guys came back and spread out, they could easily find us.

So I kept tugging her along with me for the better part of an hour before she let out a loud sob that had me stopping mid-stride and whipping around, finding her eyes painfully red and a few measly tears tracing down her cheeks, likely too dehydrated to manage more than that, given how cracked her lips were even before the run through the woods.

"I… can't… breathe," she gasped, falling to her knees, gulping at the air.

Fuck.

I'd pushed her too hard. She was too fragile for this.

I didn't have a choice , a voice in my head reminded me even as the guilt stabbed at me.

"Arms up," I said, reaching to grab her wrists myself, tugging them high, opening up her chest. "In through the nose, out through the mouth. You're alright. You just need a second," I assured her, even as her gasps made me wonder if I wasn't right about that.

I needed to get her some water.

She wasn't going to make it without some.

There had to be a water source around here somewhere.

"Listen, I need to take a look around, see if I can find a stream," I said.

"Don't leave me," she squeaked, eyes huge, panicked.

"I'm not," I said, holding up my hands. "I am not going to leave you. I just need to look around, and you need to rest for a few minutes. I won't go far," I promised her. "I promise."

"Okay," she said, but her lower lip wobbled.

"Count to sixty ten times," I told her. "I promise I'll be back by then."

With that, I took off in one direction, counting for myself, so I kept my word.

But there was no luck.

I made my way back to her, finding her breathing even, but she was rubbing at her calves, the muscles likely cramping from the dehydration and exertion.

"Okay. Let's do that one more time, okay? I need to go in the other direction," I said, pointing.

"Okay," she agreed, more comfortable now that I'd proven I would come back.

But no luck in that direction either.

"Okay," I said when I came back the second time. "How about I give you a piggyback ride while we go this way?" I suggested, pointing in the direction I wanted to continue down, getting further away from the house.

"You can't carry me," she insisted, getting to her feet, but there was no missing the wince she made as her legs took her weight again.

"I'm pretty sure I've carried grocery bags heavier than you are right now," I said, turning away from her, and lowering down, cutting off any objections as I waited for her to move closer.

She hesitated, and my gut twisted thinking of all of the reasons she might have to not want to be anywhere near a man, but she did eventually wrap her arms around my neck, then her legs around my waist.

I was right about her weighing practically nothing.

But she still slowed me down a bit, making me do a brisk walk instead of the run I'd preferred.

Still, progress was progress.

And another twenty minutes into our trek, I heard it.

A trickle.

"Thank fuck," I said, making a beeline for the sound, finding a pretty sizable creek nestled between some heavy tree cover.

"Hop down, Vienna," I said as I got to the bank.

She wasted no time, dropping down onto all fours, plunging her hands into the water, cupping it, and taking greedy sips.

"I hate to even say this, but go slow," I said as I lowered down as well, cupping some and drinking.

There was no reasoning with weeks or months of dehydration, though. Vienna plunged her hands into the water over and over, drinking greedily for what felt like ages before, finally, taking a slow, deep breath.

But her hands went in again, this time rubbing the water up her dirty arms, then cupping some to scrub at her face with.

"As much as I want to tell you to go ahead and do a whole body scrub," I said as she eyed the water with pure longing, "I don't think you should get too wet right now. It's going to get cold tonight."

I hated the way the excitement banked in her eyes, but I was already worried about keeping her warm enough while she was dry. I didn't want to risk it with her wet.

"Do you want to climb back on?" I asked. "Or do you want to walk for a bit?"

"I can walk if we don't go too fast," she said.

We had a solid few hours on the guys at the house. And the woods were too dense even for off-roading vehicles, so there was no way they could catch up to us if we slowed down a bit for a while.

I would insist on carrying her again after a while, then double the pace for a while before night would eventually force us to bunker down somewhere. Though I doubted I would be doing any fucking sleeping until we were in a car or hotel room again.

We walked in silence, both lost in our own thoughts, but I could see the way Vienna kept lifting her hands, chafing at the bare skin of her matchstick arms as a slight breeze kicked up.

If I had to, I could strip off my shirt and let her wear it. I could handle the cold on my bare skin. She couldn't.

I really needed to get something into her stomach, too.

I wasn't from Arkansas, so I didn't feel comfortable trying to forage for risky things like mushrooms. But there could definitely be things easy to identify that were safe. Raspberries, nuts, maybe if we were lucky, some dandelion greens.

It wouldn't be pleasant, but it would be fuel that she desperately needed to keep going.

I had enough meat on me to get through a few days without food. But she had nothing left to fuel her body with left.

"Riff?" she called, her soft voice barely more than a whisper.

"Yeah?"

"I can't walk anymore," she said, sounding like the admission gutted her.

"No worries," I said, turning and dropping down again. "Hop on."

"I'm sorry," she said as I stood with her on my back again.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," I assured her as I started to pick up the pace, praying my old Boy Scout training was serving me well as we went, that we were going in the right direction, not deeper into a forest that seemed to span hundreds of acres on the map.

Thank fuck for that map, actually. For poring over it at the gas station, trailing the path we needed to take with our fingers, checking out the compass in the corner.

The sun was slowly moving across the sky toward the west, so I knew that we were heading toward the south-east. Which should, at some point, run into one of the roads on the map.

From there, I could handle this.

I had cash in my wallet.

I could get someone to drive us somewhere safe.

Then call my brother.

As soon as we stopped again, I would power up my phone to shoot him a text, then turn it back off to conserve the battery.

On my back, Vienna's head shifted to rest against me and her body felt like it was going lax. Like she was falling asleep.

Shit.

I had to reach back and touch her, then. To make sure she didn't fall off of me. But the idea of putting my hands on an abused woman had my stomach sloshing around.

I waited until she was even more dead weight against me before reaching back to grab the backs of her thighs, slowly increasing the pressure until I was sure she wasn't going anywhere.

She didn't even flinch.

I couldn't imagine the woman had been able to enjoy some solid, fear-free sleep in a long time. Clearly, her body was making up for lost time.

With her out cold, I kept moving at a more punishing pace, wanting to make as much progress as possible if we were going to have to hunker down for hours and hours soon.

I almost thought I was seeing things at first. Like a mirage of water in the brutal desert.

But as I kept moving in that direction, I was sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me.

It was the outline of something solid. But ancient-looking, the wood weather-worn to a gray color with years of the elements beating down on it.

But it was a building.

Shelter.

Something to block out the wind.

I couldn't risk a fire, though it had a fireplace sticking out of the roof, but maybe there would be blankets inside.

Or food.

I worried it would be too obvious, that someone might see it and figure we would stop to use it as shelter, then surround us.

But I couldn't force this woman to sleep on the cold ground if I could give her a building.

Even if I stayed up all night and kept vigil.

I had my gun still.

Some bullets.

If the whole crew didn't come after us, I was pretty sure I could still keep us safe.

Decision made, I headed for the tiny hunting cabin.

I reached carefully with one hand, but the door didn't budge.

"Vienna," I called, soft at first, then louder, jiggling my body slightly.

She came alert with a jolt so hard that she fell off of me, crashing to the unyielding ground with a cry of pain, not having any padding on her to ease the fall.

"Sorry, darlin', sorry," I said, turning around to find her looking up with confused, wide eyes, until I saw it all come back into focus for her.

"I fell asleep," she said, brows pinched.

"Yeah, you did. Sorry I had to wake you, but I found a hunting cabin," I told her, waving at it. "And I think I'm gonna need both hands to get it open."

"Oh, okay," she said, slowly moving to push herself up, rubbing her sore butt and thighs as I turned to focus on the door.

Clearly, no one had been here for a long fucking time, because it took a lot more force than it should have to get it open.

But, eventually, the door gave, and it creaked open to reveal a stagnant, dusty interior.

"Come on," I said, voice soft, waiting for her to move in behind me before going inside.

It wasn't much.

Four walls that created maybe sixty-five square feet of space. But, hey, it was shelter.

And there was actually a fucking bed against the wall, covered with a wool blanket. Sure, it was a little moth-eaten and smelled musty as fuck. But it would provide warmth. That was all that mattered.

"Sit," I said, motioning to the bed as I made a beeline for the cabinet built into the wall, praying for some sort of shelf-stable food that hadn't been eroded or eaten by insects or rodents.

Most of the shit was canned, though, years expired, and not something I would risk on someone who was as physically compromised as Vienna already was.

But there was some honey. And, hey, calories were calories, even if it wasn't ideal. And two sealed dehydrated meals. I didn't even bother checking their labels. That shit was good for something like thirty years. And it just needed water to become edible.

"A little better?" I asked, turning to find her sitting on the bed with the blanket wrapped tightly around her.

"Yes," she said, nodding. "Is that food?" she asked.

"Yeah, I just gotta go get some water to rehydrate it. There's a few cups, too. So I'll bring those and fill them up. Here," I said, holding out the honey to her. "I know it's probably not going to be pleasant to just… eat honey. But it's like sixty-five calories per tablespoon. And you need as many calories as you can get."

"I'm not complaining," she said, flipping open the top, then squeezing some onto her tongue.

"I will be back as quickly as I can," I told her.

Then I gathered the various cups and even an old mason jar, and made my way out toward the creek. Night was coming on quickly, so I pushed myself faster than my body wanted to get there and back before the darkness really set in.

Juggling my various cups, I pushed open the door, and nearly dropped everything I'd gathered on the fucking floor.

Because Vienna was nowhere in sight.

"Vienna?" I gasped, heart hammering, terrified they'd somehow caught up with us, had come and dragged her back to that hell.

I would go back for her.

I had to.

But even as I was about to turn and go rush through the woods, there was a sliding sound, and she was moving out from under the bed.

"Sorry," she said once she got a look at my face.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," I assured her, acting like my heart wasn't hammering against my ribcage as I put the cups of water down on top of the fireplace, only bringing one over to use to rehydrate the bean and veggie soup food packet.

"This is probably not going to taste great cold, but we can't risk a fire," I told her, finding a spoon, then handing over the soup.

"It smells good," she said, taking a long sniff, then starting to shovel the food into her mouth. It wouldn't have even mattered if it tasted like garbage with how fast she was shoving it in.

My heart twisted, wanting to offer her the other serving just so she could know what real fullness felt like, but I needed to hold onto that for the next day. Especially if we were going to be in these damn woods for any longer than that. She needed the strength.

"You're not eating?" she asked, using her finger to scoop the traces of flavor off the side of the mylar package.

"No. I had a big meal before the meeting. I'm good for now."

"You're saving it for me, aren't you?" she asked, chewing on her cracked lip.

"Yes," I admitted since there was no use lying to her about it. "I can go without a meal or two. You can't. Try not to think in normal terms of fairness right now. This is survival. My body has energy to burn for a while still. Yours doesn't. There's no reason to feel bad about that."

Knowing I was right, she nodded.

"Try to get some sleep. We are going to leave the second the light comes up in the morning," I told her as the sounds of the night enveloped the cabin.

"Okay," she agreed, looking exhausted as she curled back up in the blanket, tucking every inch of her inside of it as possible, then slowly drifting to sleep.

I stayed awake, jumping at shadows and the sounds outside, ready to pounce if anyone tried for that door.

But it was another noise that started to bother me in the darkest parts of the night just before morning, something I couldn't place right at first, until I traced it to the bed.

Vienna shivering, her teeth knocking together from the trembling.

"Vienna?" I called.

"Y-yeah?" she answered, voice vibrating.

Fuck.

"Cold?" I asked.

"I don't know why," she admitted. Since, yeah, she'd been living in a shed without heat or even a blanket to keep her warm.

Maybe it was from the eating and drinking and exhausting her body.

I have a bit of a fatigue fever my grandmother used to say after a long day working in her garden when she would be curled up under three blankets and still shivering.

"I… I could warm you," I told her, wincing at how that sounded, how she might take that. "Even if I don't go under the blanket with you," I added, wanting to give her as much protection as she might want.

"Okay," she agreed, sounding weak.

"You can tell me to get away at any point," I told her, kicking out of my shoes as I stood at the side of the bed.

"Okay," she agreed again as she wiggled over toward the wall, leaving space for me to climb in behind her.

I did, inch by inch, careful not to actually touch her.

"You don't have to get too close," she said. "I know I'm filthy."

"That's the fucking last worry on my mind," I assured her, scooting closer just to prove my point. When she didn't stiffen up, I let my legs tuck against hers, but kept my pelvis away, then curled my upper body closer as well. "This should help," I told her.

Eventually, though, she'd needed to let me under the blanket as well.

But almost as soon as she did, the shivers stopped, and she drifted off to sleep.

As I lay awake trying not to let myself think the one fucking thing I had no business thinking right then.

That something about this felt nice. Felt right.

What the fuck was wrong with me?