Page 20 of Breaking His Exile

So why was she hesitating?

Because some part of her, the part that had watched Evander Cole fold himself onto the floor between her and the door, the part that had seen the faint loosening in his shoulders when Tilly chose to sleep beside her cot, the part that recognized the scars on his knuckles for what they were—that part was telling her to stop.

She shoved it down.

She put the key in the ignition. Turned it.

Nothing.

Not a crank. Not a click. Just the dead, mute silence of a machine that had no intention of answering, and the cold realization spreading like ice water through her chest. She tried again. The same nothing. Her hand fell from the key and her breath came out in a rush that fogged the windshield.

He’d known.

He’d known she would run, and he’d made sure she couldn’t.

Rage came up so fast and hot it burned the cold away. She threw open the door and got out, and her bare feet hit the dirt hard enough to jar her ribs, and the pain only fed the fire. She stalked around the front of the truck, opened the hood release, and yanked the heavy sheet of metal up.

The battery was gone. He’d disconnected and removed it.

She was still standing there, staring down into the engine bay, when his voice came from behind her.

“You won’t get far.”

She spun. Evander stood at the edge of the porch with Tilly at his side, both of them watching her with dark, unreadable eyes. He’d slung the rifle over one shoulder, and his hair hung loose around his face, and he looked exactly as dangerous as the BOLO said he was. But his voice had a dry edge to it that made her want to throw something.

“You removed the battery,” she said. “You made sure I couldn’t leave.”

“I made sure nobody could take my truck.”

“Don’t lie to me. You did it so I’d be stuck here.”

“I did it so you wouldn’t do something stupid to put yourself in danger while I slept.” He came down off the porch slowly, Tilly padding beside him.

“You’re holding me against my will.”

“Am I?” He stopped a few feet away and crossed his arms over his chest. The morning light caught the line of his jaw, the dark circles beneath his eyes. Up close, he looked exhausted—not just from the night, but from years. “You really want to leave and take your chances out there? I’m not stopping you.”

The cold air bit through the thin cotton of her borrowed shirt. Her ribs pulled with every breath. She stood there barefoot and shaking with her arms wrapped around herself, and she knew—she knew—that he was right. There was no lock on the door. No chain on her wrist. He hadn’t touched her, hadn’t threatened her, had slept on the floor between her and whatever might come through the door after her.

She let the truck’s hood fall shut and threw the keys at him.

He easily caught them. “We need to talk.”

He turned and walked back toward the cabin without waiting for her answer. Tilly lingered, looking from Rainey to Evander and back again, her tail sweeping once against the dirt, a question in her eyes.

Rainey sighed and followed.

Inside, Evander had a topographical map spread across the table. “Come here.”

She didn’t want to. But her feet carried her to the table, and she stood across from him with her arms still wrapped around her middle and her teeth clamped against the ache in her left side.

He touched a finger to the map. “We’re here.” His finger rested on a crease in the paper, a spot where the contour lines crowded together so tightly they looked like the bones of the mountain itself. He tapped the cabin’s location again, then trailed his finger upward along a winding line that had to be the track they’d driven in on. “The closest ranger station is here. Twelve miles as the crow flies, almost twice that on the ground. If you set out on foot with those ribs and no compass, you’d be lucky to make it in a day.”

“I wasn’t planning on walking. I was planning on driving.”

“In a recognizable truck that’s already been on the news.” His finger moved again, this time to the highway that ran along the western edge of the map. “Every road between here and Solace is being watched. The sheriff’s department put out a BOLO within an hour of the fight. That means deputies, state troopers, anybody with a radio and a desire to look useful is keeping an eye out for my truck.”

“So I walk.”