Page 72 of Corrupted Lies

Knowing each breath she took could be her last.

They didn't know what orders these men had been given. Perhaps they weren't interested in torturing them or capturing them, perhaps they just wanted them dead. The orders could be to kill on sight.

If that was the case, these were her last seconds on earth.

Clinging to Jake, she buried her face in his chest, dragging in lungfuls of his scent, wanting to imprint it on her mind so it was the last thing she would experience before death came for her.

Only it didn't come.

The voices grew louder until she was sure the men were mere feet away from them, but then there were no shouts or gunshots, instead the voices began to recede.

Was it possible …?

Had the men walked right past them without spotting them?

Terrified to move in case she was wrong, and the men had spotted them but just hadn't done anything about it yet, Alannah just crouched there and held onto Jake, needing his presence to ground her. There was nothing he could do to save her from those men, but that didn't matter, Jake had always been her safe place, and he was now as much as he ever had been.

“They’re gone,” Jake’s low voice whispered, and the hand that had been cradling the back of her head rubbed lightly, his fingers stroking through her tangled locks.

“G-gone?” she repeated, not moving, unwilling to believe they’d been spared.

At least for now.

“We have to move, now, we won't have long. They’re heading toward our shelter, and once they find it, they’re going to call in reinforcements if there aren't already more men on the island looking for us.”

“Why are they looking for us? They should think we’re dead,” she whimpered, still not lifting her head from Jake’s chest and keeping her eyes squeezed firmly closed. After all, if you couldn’t see the monster then it couldn’t see you either, wasn't that the way it worked when you were a child?

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re just being thorough, wanting to make sure we didn't survive. Whatever their reasons, we have to get out of here.”

“There’s nowhere to go,” she protested as he stood, dragging her up with him, and she had no choice but to open her eyes so she didn't slow him down when he started moving.

“There wasn't anywhere to go,” Jake corrected. “There is now.”

“What?”

“Those men didn't swim here like we did, sunshine,” Jake said, already moving and towing her along with him.

Right.

Of course.

Her mind was so clogged with panic that it couldn’t think clearly.

The men hadn't been lost at sea and washed up on the shore, they hadn't struggled to get around the rocks blocking the way, they weren't soaked like she and Jake had been when they finally got onto the sand. The men had come on a boat.

A boat.

If they could get to it …

Was that too much to hope for?

Doing her best to keep up with Jake’s much longer stride, Alannah ran as fast as she could alongside him. While he seemed to be able to run without making much of a sound, she did not possess that same skill. When she ran, it sounded like a herd of elephants was traipsing through the woods.

With each step they took, she kept expecting the men with the guns to come jumping out, but nobody came.

While she was simply following along, Jake seemed to be moving with a purpose like he suspected he knew exactly where the boat would be.

Finally, they reached the tree line, and he froze. Alannah immediately recognized where they were. This was the same beach where they’d first landed when they reached the island. She hadn't walked all the way around the shore, they’d mostly explored inland, but she knew Jake had said there was only one way through the rocks. They’d been lucky they’d approached that way because if they’d been on the other side of the island, they would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks and never made it to safety.

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