Hot Protector(13)

Nothing to do now but wait.





SOPHIE BLINKED AWAKE, confusion settling into her brain for a moment. The cot was stiff, she was cold, and the air smelled woodsy and kind of musty at the same time. Her body ached as she shifted, her muscles protesting with sharp soreness in her legs and back.

When it hit her where she was, she sat up, wincing with pain as she searched the room. It was every bit as dark as it had been when they’d arrived earlier, so she figured she must have slept until almost nightfall. She would have thought that impossible considering the danger she was in, but apparently she was wrong. Her gaze settled on Chase lying on the floor. He was asleep—but then he cracked an eye open and stared at her, proving her wrong.

Her heart pattered, but if Chase was on the floor looking at her with annoyance—and he was—and they were still in the tree, which they were, then they were safe. Still alive, still hopeful.

Her stomach rumbled, and she put a hand over it because it was so loud. Chase pushed himself up to a sitting position and shoved a hand through his hair. His jaw cracked as he yawned, and she felt a pang of guilt that he’d had to sleep on the floor while she took the cot.

Still, she was glad he hadn’t made her take the floor. If her body hurt this much after sleeping on a cot, she hated to think what it would feel like if she’d spent the day on a plank floor.

Chase reached for something beside him and then threw it at her with a “Here, catch.”

Sophie caught the plastic package as if it were a fish, fumbling it back and forth until it plopped onto the bed beside her. “What is it?”

“It’s an MRE—Meal, Ready to Eat,” he said. “It’s what we eat in the field. It’ll fill you up, trust me.”

The plastic was thick. She tried to tear it, but nothing happened. Chase pushed to his knees and came over to her. He bent his head, taking it from her. He was so close she could feel the heat emanating from him. He smelled like the outdoors, fresh and clean—and a little sweaty too. She bit her lip as he flipped open a knife. He cut the package open and looked up at her.

Her breath stopped in her chest as their eyes met. His were green, rimmed in brown with golden flecks dotting the iris. She had a sudden insane urge to reach out and touch his cheek, to skim her fingers over the hard plane of his jaw that had a day’s growth of stubble.

He shoved the package he’d opened into her hand and turned away before she could do anything so stupid. Sophie took a deep breath, trying to calm her fluttering heart and make it beat normally again. Then she upended the MRE, and several envelopes spilled out. She picked them up, reading each one, focusing on them as if they were the most important thing on earth. It was the only way to get her mind off Chase and that weird moment just now.

“Spaghetti? Really?”

“Just follow the directions and heat it up. It’s not the best thing you’ve ever eaten, but it’ll do the job.”

She blinked at the packets littering the bed and wondered for a second if he’d hit his head on something. “Heat it? With what?”

“The ration heater. It’s in there.”

Sophie poked around until she found a plastic envelope that said Heater on it. Really? She turned it over, studying it. It was nothing more than a plastic bag with instructions on it. She glanced up at Chase, but he was busily sorting through his own stack of envelopes. She opened the heater bag, placed the spaghetti pack inside, and filled it to the line with water from the bottle she’d left beside the cot. Then she closed the bag and held it until it started to feel warm.

“How does this work?”

It really was getting hot. She set it on the floor, propping it against one of the cot’s legs since the directions said to prop it up.

“It’s a chemical reaction,” Chase said with a shrug. “Magnesium, iron, and table salt. Add water and voila, you get heat.”

For some insane reason, that excited her more than she’d have thought possible. She kept watching the bag as if it would do a magic trick or something. “That’s pretty cool. I didn’t do so well in science—I was more of an arts and humanities kind of person.”

She babbled when she was nervous—and she was definitely nervous.

“Arts and humanities won’t keep you from starving when it’s just you and the environment.”

“No… but at least I can quote Shakespeare and provide some entertainment to the rest of the campers.”

Chase actually stopped what he was doing and looked at her long and hard. Sophie couldn’t help but giggle at the look on his face—horror, and maybe fear she was an idiot at the same time. He didn’t crack a smile when she giggled, but that didn’t stop her. In fact, she giggled harder—and that made him frown even more.