Sparrow's Flight (Savage World 1)

He moved his hand back around the trunk and placed the butt of the gun in her palm. “The rope is loose enough that all it would take for you to break away is one good wiggle. Don’t make a move until you hear the first round of gunshots. After that, you duck, and run toward the woods right behind you. They don’t keep anyone stationed back there because of the lake blocking off access. You get in the lake and start fucking swimming, okay?”

She looked to her right with just her eyes at the lake right beside them. It wasn’t very big, more like an oversized pond, but still, the water had to be frigid. But Sparrow would rather drown or freeze to death than what her future held at this camp.

“You shoot any fucker who comes near you, and you don’t think twice, okay?”

She licked her lips. “Okay.” He sounded like Mason, but no, she couldn’t think about any of that right now. If she was fast enough, she might be able to elude this Collin guy as well, but his grin told her he knew exactly what she was thinking.

“And don’t worry, princess. I’ll be right behind you. I know these woods like the back of my fucking hand, so thinking you’ll make a clean getaway from me isn’t something you should get too excited about.” He stayed silent for a moment, no doubt to let those words sink in. “I also want to remind you I’m the one helping you out of this situation.”

“Yo, Collin, come have some shots with us,” the man she already pegged as the leader of this group shouted.

Everyone started clapping, and she closed her eyes and nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”

“Good, princess. That’s real good.” He pushed away from her and stalked back toward the fire. Guys slapped him on the back, and he took a seat beside the “leader.” For another ten minutes, Sparrow stood still, clenching and unclenching her hand around the butt of the gun and wanting nothing more than to blow a hole in each of these fuckers’ heads. But she wasn’t a fool. For one thing, she didn’t know how many bullets were actually in the gun, and secondly, there were far more men holding knives that looked as long as her damn forearm and rifles.

No, she’d do what Collin said and pray this worked. Once she was free from here, all she had to worry about was getting away from Collin. He might have said he wanted company, but Sparrow wasn’t stupid. He wanted a hell of a lot more than that. If he was hanging around men like this, chances were he was no better than they were. He may’ve masked it well, but she was better off and safer on her own.

Chapter Nine

Asher and Mason crouched behind a thick thistle bush. The blaze from the fire was intense, but it wasn’t the loud laughter of the men surrounding the fire that had them on alert. It was the fact that Sparrow was tied to a tree a few feet from these motherfuckers. The sun had already set, and the cloak of darkness blended them into their surroundings. They could hear the things these men wanted to do to her, vile and obscene things that had Asher’s skin tightening and his blood roaring in his ears.

He felt rage like he had never felt before, and when he looked over at Mason, saw the other man’s fierce look of concentration and the way he kept curling his fingers over the handle of his knife, Asher knew he was just as pissed. When they had made the trek through the woods, they had come up against a crudely made fence, and both of them knew on the other side of this barrier were the men who took Sparrow. There was no doubt in their minds, and already they had wasted too much time. They didn’t follow the fence completely around, but they assumed it circled the entire camp.

They hadn’t seen any men walking the perimeter, and so they tried to find a weak spot. The chain-link was older and rusty, but it had only taken them a matter of minutes to find a weak spot at the bottom of one section of the fence. It had been small, but after working at it, they had been able to pull at it enough that they could slip through.

If it were up to Ash, he’d go in there and blow every one of their fucking heads off, but the fact was, they were outnumbered in men and firepower, and they needed to be quiet, stealthy, and smart about this. Asher looked over at the big fucker who had spent an awful lot of time pressed up against Sparrow. The blond wasn’t like the other men. That was clear from Ash’s point of view. He kept his emotions in check, and wasn’t blatant in his actions like the rest of the scum that surrounded him. Asher didn’t know what his agenda was, but what he did notice was that the fucker took a special liking to Sparrow, and that didn’t sit well with him.