Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68509 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68509 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“True,” I agreed, mouth watering at the idea of anything to eat that wasn’t fruit. I’d be happy with a damn salad. With kale. And I had strong feelings about kale. None of those feelings were positive.
“I think we should probably find a place to camp soon. The sun is starting to go down.”
“I never thought I would be looking forward to sleeping in a hammock. But here we—“
My sentence fell away as there was a distinct bang, then a ping as a bullet lodged in the tree right next to my damn head.
There was no hesitation.
We linked hands and ran.
“Weave,” I said when Wick pulled against my hold as I tried to. “Hard to hit a moving target,” I explained before saving my breath so we could push harder and faster.
Even at my full force, I was two steps behind Wick, who was practically dragging me with him.
I thought we were making progress.
Until I heard several rapid-fire rounds.
My stomach twisted as my body automatically ducked.
Wick pulled harder, forcing me to keep moving.
The ground beneath our feet was thick, sucking our shoes in with each step.
Then my foot must have found a low-lying area of mud. And when it sucked my foot in, it pulled my damn shoe off.
But there was no time to slow, to stop, to fish it out and put it back on.
Walking around a street barefoot sounded awful. Running for your life without shoes on uneven footing full of rocks, brambles, and God-knew what bugs or snakes seemed downright miserable.
Miserable was better than dead, though, so we had to keep going.
As we went, though, the ground seemed to start to decline a bit.
Then a lot all of a sudden.
My stomach dropped, and my heart leapt up into my throat as, out of nowhere, I was losing my footing and falling down a steep decline, my body tumbling over and over.
I lost hold of Wick immediately, leaving me sliding and falling and rolling in the damn mud all alone.
Until, suddenly, I stopped.
Before I could even push myself up off my stomach, though, Wick’s body was ramming into me, knocking me onto my back.
“Did you fall on purpose?” I asked, pushing up onto my knees, slipping in the mud as I tried to stand.
“Wherever you’re going, I’m following,” Wick said, getting to his feet, slipping his muddy hand in mine, then starting to run once again, knowing our pursuers would make their way down eventually.
“Was that a mudslide? I thought we were in the lowlands…”
“That must be a lava dam. Even in the lowlands, there are some hills and old lava dams that appear like caverns, but level out all around them. Wait… Do you hear that?” he asked, holding up a hand.
I didn’t at first, through the whooshing of my blood in my ears. But as my breathing slowed when Wick set a quick walking pace instead of a dead run, I did.
“Is that a river?” I asked, looking at Wick’s mud-caked face and hair.
“I think it’s a waterfall,” he said, pulling me around the hill we’d just fallen down until, there it was.
It must have been directly under where we’d been walking earlier without us even realizing.
“Where are you going?” I asked as Wick pulled me toward it.
We needed to get moving, cover some ground, and get out of the general area.
“Trust me,” Wick said, giving my hand a squeeze before moving forward.
We edged along the rocky cliff, my foot catching on various sharp edges, and I hated to think what my bare feet were going to look like at the end of the day.
This wasn’t one of those massive waterfalls I’d seen in the guidebooks. It was maybe only the height of the average house and only a few yards wide.
Still, it was my first waterfall. So I was appropriately impressed by it as we neared, the mist from the water crashing off the rocks wetting the mud on my face.
“Give me one second,” Wick said, releasing my hand as we got close to the falls.
“Where are you going?” I asked, but got no answer as he started to climb the little wall leading up to the side of the waterfall.
As for me, well, I wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to wash the thick mud off my body.
I knelt down next to the water’s edge, watching for a moment to make sure I didn’t see any suspicious fish or snakes, then plunged my arms in and scrubbed.
Finished with that, I slid off my remaining shoe and my filthy sock, then slid my legs in and started scrubbing as well.
“Wick?” I called when, even after rinsing off my hair and face, I still didn’t see him. “Wick?” I tried again, not wanting to raise my voice too much, not knowing how close the assassins were.
Then, suddenly, his hand pushed out from the waterfall itself.