Week 195 – Praying to get to safety

Jacob shoved the window up, climbed through it then held his hands out to Elle.

She looked at him for a moment, hesitated, then sighed and let him help her through the window. She was shaking and he wished there had been time to let her change, she was still dressed in nothing but the wet bikini and the temperature had dropped.

Inside the cabin he could hear at least three sets off footsteps, they had to leave now.

Because he knew that Elle had to be struggling, he’d only just performed CPR on her an hour ago, and he’d dumped a boatload of emotional baggage on her, so instead of asking her to run he put her over his shoulder and did the running himself, the whole time praying to get to safety.

For once Elle didn’t complain, just curled her fingers into his shirt and held on.

Jacob stopped when he figured he’d covered about half a mile, it wasn’t much but he needed to do something about Elle, she was still shivering, still cold, and her chest had to be hurting her.

“Put this on,” he said, grabbing another shirt from the bag he’d managed to grab before fleeing.

She shrugged it on then shot him a defiant glare, even in the moonlight he could see determination etched into every inch of her face. “So what’s the plan?”

“I get you someplace safe.”

“And then what? You bail on me again, run off to do your job and then what?”

How did he answer that?

His plan, as much as there had been one, was to finish this job then pray for a miracle that would let him win Elle back.

Now?

He had no plan bar making sure Elle was safe.

“Don’t you see,” Elle said, “you keep underestimating me, you throw me away because you think I’m not strong enough to handle things, but I’m stronger than you give me credit for.”

Her words cut deep, mostly because there was a lot of truth to them. He didn’t think that Elle was weak, quite the opposite, but he had underestimated her, had taken the choice out of her hands and made decisions for her.

That had been a mistake.

“So what do you suggest?” Jacob asked.

“That we face them together,” Elle answered fiercely.