Jill Shalvis - Out of This World

And our necks.

Because I was staring at them with dread, I could see through them, to the hard, hard ground. To the bugs burrowing in that ground. “Kel-”

But my sensitive, laid-back, easygoing Kellan just shoved me the rest of the way out the window.

I clung to what felt like a very, very small window ledge with my toes, my fingers refusing to let go of Kellan.

He merely pried my fingers from his, reached through the window and guided my grip to the drainpipe. Then he looked into my eyes and softened slightly. “Hold on tight.”

“You have any better advice than that?”

“Yes. Don’t look at the ground.”

Right. Not looking at the ground. I began to inch down, my gaze locked on the sky, which wasn’t a bad view really as Kellan climbed out after me.

“Rach?”

“Yeah?”

“Faster.”

“Oh. Right.” Hand over hand, foot over foot. After a minute, I was level with the third-floor window, one of the staff bedrooms, which I really hoped was empty versus being filled with pirates holding guns. Then I realized my eyes were closed, and I forced them to open, so that I could peek inside-

“Hey,” Axel said, sticking his head out the window, looking unusually tense, his shoulders blocking my view of the room behind him. He wore a big, nasty-looking gun strapped over his chest. “Where’s Marilee?”

I nearly fell. “Jesus.”

“Nope, just me.” He didn’t flash his usual stoner smile. In fact, he looked intense, reminding me what I’d read about him in Gert’s Blackberry.

He wasn’t really a stoner. He’d only been acting like one.

“Have you seen her?” he demanded.

“Uh, no. But there’s-”

“Pirates. I know. I distracted them away from you and Kellan by making noise.”

“Is that what you were doing?”

“What did you think?”

Telling them in code to kill us.

“Look, I’ve got to go,” he said, as if talking to me hanging off the drainpipe was the most natural thing in the world.

“Right. No, I’m good. Thanks for asking.”

“I can see you’re good, and you’ve got Kellan.”

“Thanks,” Kellan said from above. “But I’d feel better if she had someone at her side who actually knew what the fuck was going on.”

“Just stay away from the guys with guns.”

I looked at the gun Axel still had strapped across his chest, which, if I wasn’t mistaken, had come from Gertrude’s stock.

“That doesn’t include me,” he said.

“You going to help us?” Kel asked.

“Yes. Meet me in the woods. Where the swap occurred.” He pulled back inside the window, but then hesitated. “Oh, and probably the best thing would be to hurry.”

“How about you scoot back and let us inside?”

Axel grimaced regretfully, scratching his head. “I’d like to, but if they find you, it’ll go worse for all of us.”

“It can’t get any worse.”

“Sure it can. We could all be-” He mimed being hung by his neck, complete with tongue sticking out and eyes bugging.

It was an image that made me shudder.

“This is serious shit, dudes,” Axel said.

“Yeah, thanks for that valuable info.”

“Dudette, listen to me.” I’d never seen Axel look so serious. “If you believe anything, you’ve got to believe this is bad. The worst. I’m going to go find Marilee and help her. Meet us in the woods. And hurry.”

Hurry. No problem. But then I made the mistake of looking down, which caused black spots to swim sickeningly in my vision. “Damn it.”

“I told you not to look down,” Kel said above me.

Yes. Yes, he had. Gritting my teeth, I began moving again, not quite quickly enough for Kellan, though, who urged me on with his size-thirteen feet, which kept threatening to clock me in the head.

“You should have gone first,” I hissed up at him, concentrating on hand over hand, foot over foot, and on not falling to my certain death.

“If I’d gone first,” he said with maddening calm, “you’d have never gotten out on the ledge.”

True enough.

“Hurry, Rach.”

If one more person told me to hurry, I was going to seriously lose it, and I swear, if I had it to do all over again, I’d have poked him in the ass instead of staring at it.

“Breathe, Rach. Are you breathing?”

“I am now.” To prove it, I inhaled deeply, letting it out slowly. “I need cookies. And a Prozac.”

“Keep moving.”

Hand over hand.

Foot over foot.

Don’t breathe too fast, but don’t forget to breathe.

Oh, and don’t look down.

And don’t fall either.

Falling would be bad. Really, really bad. Finally I arrived at the second-floor window. It opened into one of the guest rooms, a particularly rustic, country-styled room with a queen-size four-poster bed and a golden pine dresser with a mirror, through which I could see the rest of the room reflected.

Axel wasn’t in there, but I received an even bigger shock.

William and Serena were tied to a chair, gags in their mouths, staring at us.

No Axel or stinky pirates in sight. “Kel.”

Kel, just above me, squatted, too, looking in the glass. “Shit.” Then he opened the window.

“What are you doing ?”

“Keep going. I’ll be right behind you before you touch the ground.” With lithe ease, he swung into the room.

William went white. Shook his head violently.

I caught the message. Don’t stop for us . Save your own damn necks .

Not that Kel listened. He never listened. He moved quickly to Serena and untied her hands, then turned toward William.

But before I could drop into the room as Kel had, Serena yanked off her gag. “Kellan! No! Take Rach and get out!”

It terrified me, hearing her fear, but before I could climb inside, the bedroom door slammed open.

I jerked back and nearly fell off the damn ledge.

Moe leveled his gun at Kellan. “Tie them back up.”

Kellan didn’t move. Nor did he look at me. But I could feel him, desperate for me to get out of sight.

“Tie them up now, ” Moe said to Kel.

The voice was terrifying, the gun even more so, and I pressed back out of view, willing Kel not to do anything stupid, so he wouldn’t die right here.

“You deaf?” Moe yelled at Kellan. “I said tie them up. ”

“No,” Kellan said.

I think I stopped breathing as I clung to the drainpipe, trying like hell to vanish into thin air.

If I could somehow shimmy down, then find a way to rescue them all-

With what? My X-ray vision?

Oh God. I was panting for air, and it was so loud, I was shocked Moe hadn’t stepped to the window to investigate. Any minute now I would hyperventilate and pass out.

And fall to my death.

No. Not going to fail Kellan. Omigod, Kellan, who was right this very second staring down the wrong end of a very long, very-powerful looking barrel.

What if they killed him?

I actually had to stop and hold still for a second at this thought: my life without Kellan in it. It was too dark, too overwhelming, too lonely, and I couldn’t even contemplate it.

He wasn’t going to die.

No one was.

Because I was going to get down.

That’s right. I was going to get down, and then I’d find my own weapon and somehow save the day. Me, a muralist, a pacifist, a woman who hated conflict. I was going to do this one thing, and I was going to do it one step at a time and not think about it too hard.

First, down the drainpipe.

Easier said than done in a state of near-panic. Hand over hand…Finally I managed to get within five feet of the ground, and feeling triumphant, I glanced down.

And gasped in new terror.