Valentine's CYOA, Chapter 5

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Chapter Five

D) His equally snappy reply was cut off by the sick cough of a dying engine. I sputtered right along with the car.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"I rarely joke. Jump!"

Why do the pretty ones always have to be so crazy? I curled my fingers around the door handle, took a deep breath, and pushed it open. “For the record, I think this is a very bad idea!”

“Lady, if you don’t jump...”

“What? You’ll kill me?” The car slowed and started to jerk. “This has a huge suckage factor!”

He shoved me then, and I started plotting his murder the second I landed on the ground. I hit the side of the embankment seconds before he rolled on top of me. Breathless, I closed my eyes at the sickening sound of metal crunching.

“Get off me, Bucko!” I shoved my shoulder into his chest.

He groaned and rolled off me. “Are you alright?”

“You pushed me out of a moving car, Jerk Face.” I pushed myself to my knees and glanced around. “Is she gone?”

“I’d rather not wait around to find out.”

I took the hand he held out and let him pull me to my feet. “Look, pretty boy, I don’t know what you are into here...”

His hand clamped down over my mouth as he shoved me backward against a tree. The heat of his body was almost enough to make me forget how much trouble we were in.

“Why do the beautiful ones always have be to so mouthy?” he asked softly.

I clenched my teeth into his hand, but let go abruptly when two men with ginormous guns jogged past us and headed toward the tangled mess of the car.

Our eyes met in the darkness. I’m sure I looked like a co-ed in a slasher flick, wide-eyed and waiting to die, but his were hard, determined.

He tucked his face close to mine and spoke softly. “We’ll have to move fast. No complaining, no bitching. I promise when we’re safe I’ll let you bitch at me the rest of your natural life. But, now, I need quiet. Do you understand?”

I could only nod. Amateur, yes. Scared, yes. Too stupid to live, big fat no. I wanted to survive. I wanted to find out if Mr. Too Sexy for Words lived up to his nose.

I closed my eyes as his hand lifted from my mouth and was replaced by his firm, warm lips. Tears slipped past my eyelashes as I opened for his gentle exploration. My fingers dug into his forearms, I wanted to hold onto the moment as long as I could. What would come next was just too hard to think about.

All too quickly, he lifted his head. “Ready?”

“Yes,” I whispered. The man gave excellent reassurance.

He brushed the tears from my face, grabbed my hand, and pulled me away from the tree. Our pace was swift, and I did my level best to be quiet, but I’m certain I sounded like a heard of elephants moving through the forest all by myself. Stealth had never been a gift of mine.

“Where the hell is she?”

I jerked at the sound of the stripper’s voice and Mr. Dark and Dangerous pulled me close and sought cover behind a large tree. Pressed between him and yet another tree, I sighed softly. “I hate nature.”

He buried his face against my neck, a soft laugh escaping his lips. “Shh.”

I was going to hold him to his promise. Bitching had always been a hobby for me; but after tonight, I was pretty sure I could make it an art form. The sharp sound of wood breaking to the left of us made him jerk against me, and he lifted his gun. Another movement, another breaking branch, and he fired.

The sickening thud of a body hitting the ground followed the report of the weapon, and I turned my head. The last thing I ever wanted to see was a body. A dead body. A bloody, dead body.

Okay, so I was getting a little fixated.

He moved, jerked me forward, and we started to run. Secret Agent Man was fast, and considering the death grip he had on my hand, I had no choice but to be fast right along with him. Screaming and cursing followed us, and it took everything I had not scream right along with her.

I was never ever ever answering my doorbell again as long as I lived. If I lived. The forest suddenly thinned, and I heard the sound of rushing water just seconds before we broke through, and I saw the river.

“Damn it,” he swore.

The fun just kept on coming, didn’t it?

A) “We have to cross it.”

“No way in hell.” I took a step back. “Don’t you dare push me, Pretty Boy.”

He reached out and grabbed a fist full of my shirt. “My name is Jayson Brant. Special Agent Jayson Brant. And we cross this river or we die.”

B) I started out into the water, and he grabbed my arm. “What?”

He glanced back towards the woods and then down the river. “Let’s go up and try to find another place to cross. The water is too quick here.”

“It’s not going to matter where we cross!"

His mouth tightened into a thin line. "I can't swim."

"Oh, you're shittin' me." I glared. "Dude, what kind of super secret agent man are you?"

His grip tightened. "My name is Scott Morrison, and I'm a vampire hunter not a secret agent."

C) We rushed out into the river together, the water soaked up my jeans up to my knees, and I swallowed a scream of shock at the cold water. "Hey, Roger Ramjet, you think we could manage to make this experience a little more miserable?"

He pulled me up the bank and on to blessed dry land a little rougher than necessary. "My name is James Grimm, and trust me, this situation can only get worse."

D) "Don't move." The action of a shotgun being primed made my stomach clench. "I got her!"

We turned together and he leveled the handgun at our would-be captor. "How much is your life worth?"

The shotgun swung from me to him. "Drop the gun, Jared. You've got no where to go."

"You know me, Carson." Jared stepped in front of me slightly. "You know what I'm capable of. You can drop your gun and get the hell out of here or I can kill you."

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