Playing With Fire

Chapter Fifty-Three

Recap

      As soon as the door locks, Travis pops his head up, looking more ready and alive than his near dead look only seconds ago. When his eyes meet mine, he grimaces and motions for me to help him.

     "Come here," He instructs, "I have a knife in the calf pocket of my pants."

     Without hesitation, I awkwardly crawl my way over to him, falling over in the process. All the while, my face grows to an even darker shade of red when I think of how everyone is staring at me making a fool of myself.

     When I reach him, he rolls over onto his back and crunches up to point to the pocket where the knife is located. "It took every ounce of strength in me to let him hit me."

     I almost lose my balance and fall on top of his legs as I lean forward to grab the knife out, but I manage to stay upright. "I bet."

     "You punch ten times better than him," He muses before moving his arms away as I attempt to grab them. "I know we've held our grudges, but please don't stab me."

     I roll my eyes, "Shut up and let me help you."

     He drops his head down on the floor and looks up as I tug his hands towards me again and start to cut through the material as fast as I can.

     "You got anything on you?" He asks as I continue to rip through the strings.

     "A fully loaded gun." I grunt once the knife successfully breaks the rope apart, "I had two, but that one didn't last."

     Travis whistles lowly and murmurs under his breath, "That's my girl."

 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Chapter Fifty-Three-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- --

       "Jesus!"

     I yank harder at the rope tied around Wes's feet, regretting my decision to untie his legs with each ticking second.

     "I swear, if I hear your voice one more time," Travis growls from behind me, "I will hurt you."

     Everyone else had finally been untied, and fortunately enough, Laura was gaining more and more strength by the minute. My head still pounds from the impact—although, at this point, I'm partially convinced my mind has exhausted all its resources and has just about given up for the rest of eternity.

     Wes suddenly turns to me with desperate eyes, and I instantly jerk backwards in disgust.

      "You don't want to be doing this." He says lowly.

     "Oh yeah?" I roll my eyes, "and why is that?"

     "If we all work together," he begins, looking around at Dad, Travis, Laura, Layla and me, "we could make it—there are seven of us, if we could just distract them long enough to get out of here, this—"

     He's cut off cold with a punch to the jaw.

     I jump back and ram right into a fuming Layla. Did she just—

     "The nerve," She all but spits out while shaking her hand out, "but ow?"

     "Wow," Travis muses, "You two really are family—bad punch technique is clearly a genetic issue."

     "Shut up." Both Layla and I snap at the same time.

     Travis shrugs and holds his hands up while mumbling something incoherent.