“Jude?” I peered through the darkness, following his shadow as it danced across the cabin. Last night had been the latest in a string of many late nights where I had done drill after drill of card counting and he had thoroughly rewarded me. We had just fallen asleep a few hours ago, accidentally sharing the bed rather than him retreating to the couch like usual.
I didn’t mind in the least.
The temperatures at night had risen enough for us to be comfortable without a fire, but I slept better with the warmth of his body against mine.
Was that why he was up and moving around in the predawn hours—because we had fallen asleep together and he was trying to get some space? I understood having boundaries and not having sleepovers after sex, but we were stuck in a very small one-room cabin. Sleeping on the couch just to make a point didn’t hurt me. It only hurt his back.
“What’s the matter?” he asked in a hushed voice as he braced his hand against the wall and toed on his boots.
“What are you doing?” I grumbled as I rubbed my eyes.
After the first scare, when hikers got a little too curious about the cabin, Jude and I made a pact to stay inside. To lay low. We let the shabby cabin exterior tell the story it needed to. With the exception of two strolls down the tunnel to get some fresh air down at the river, we stayed invisible. It was necessary, but no matter how much I tried to keep myself entertained, I was about to start climbing the walls.
“Gotta go into town. Need supplies.”
He was really just going to sneak out like that? Like last time?
So I had tried to escapeonce. Sue me. It was my first kidnapping, after all. I wanted the full experience.
Hurt stung my gut as I worked the edge of the quilt between my fingers. “You didn’t mention that last night.” I glanced up, trying to make out his features in the darkness. “You were just going to leave without telling me?”
Jude shrugged. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
It had utterly terrified me the last time he snuck into town. I woke up alone, thinking it was all a fever dream, then afraid that I’d been left in the cabin to die.
Jude grabbed his coat. “I won’t be long.”
That still meant he’d be gone at least four hours.
I had no sense of time since the cabin lacked a clock, but given that it was still pitch-black outside, it had to be before six in the morning.
We tried to keep the lights off as much as possible once the sun went down, which meant my body had adjusted to the circadian rhythm of waking with the sunrise. There was no way I’d be able to “sleep in” and he knew it.
“Can I come?” There was no sense in being shy about it or beating around the bush. If he was leaving, I wanted to leave too.
“No,” Jude answered shortly. “You need to lay low. People are looking for you.”
“They’re looking for you too.” I crossed my arms. “And we still have enough to eat for a few days, more if you count the MREs in the cellar as food. I don’t, but you do. So why are you really leaving?”
He was silent. Even though it was pitch-black, I could sense him staring at me. “We need supplies.”
“Bullshit.”
“Amelia,” he groaned.
Ire began to grow alongside annoyance. “Remember our conversation when I tried to run the first time? If you treat me like a hostage, I’ll act like one. If you don’t trust me with the whole truth, then I’ll stop trusting you. Simple as that.”
He huffed, and I just knew that he was pinching the bridge of his nose and cursing me in his mind.
Good.
“Get your fucking shoes on,” he grumbled before storming out to the truck.
I hurried to throw some clothes on, tie my hair in a ponytail, brush my teeth, and meet him out by the truck before he changed his mind and left me behind. “Why are you in such a bad mood this morning?” I asked as he grabbed a split log and pinned down the tarp beside the cabin so it wouldn’t blow away while we were gone. “I thought you’d be all sunshine and roses after last night.”
Jude looked up, arching an eyebrow. “Am I ever sunshine and roses?”
“That smile you had when you came on my tits last night was sunshine and roses.”
