Read Rules of Survival (Entangled Embrace) for Free Online

luck. Thankfully—or on the off chance you were me, unthankfully —that one part luck was with me at that particular moment. Down on the ground, below our bathroom window was the hotel’s heated swimming pool.
    A wave of nausea washed over me. Water. I would have preferred to take my chances jumping onto concrete from seven stories up than jumping into water. I’d almost drowned when I was six. Water was my kryptonite . “Shit.”
    “What?” Shaun snapped, pushing me aside to peer out the window. He looked both ways, then pulled his head back inside. “What’s wrong?”
    I hated the terror in my voice. Mom taught me to be strong. To do the things that needed to be done. Fear or not, you pushed through because the alternative wasn’t really an option. But this… “Water. The pool. I can’t—”
    He was looking at me like I was crazy. “There’s a ledge. We can make it to another room. We’re not jumping !”
    I nodded looked down. Ledge. Another room. That sounded like a good idea to me. Why the hell hadn’t I seen that? I pushed out the screen. It fell to the ground and landed in the bushes below.
    With a deep breath, I tugged on the shackles. “Hurry up and undo these.”
    Shaun nodded, frantically digging into his pocket. “Um…”
    Panic welled inside my chest. “Please tell me um is code for right away !”
    He peered over his shoulder at the door, and when he turned back, his face was pale. “I lost the key.”
    “You lost the—” This wasn’t happening. First the water, now I had to climb out a window and scale a micro-thin ledge shackled to one of the guys trying to send me to jail? “Fine. We’re climbing out together then. Help me up…”
    His free hand cupped my backside and pushed.
    “Hey!” I snapped as the warmth from his hand seeped through my jeans. “Watch the hand.”
    He gave another good shove. “Are you serious? I think we’ve got more important things to worry about than me accidentally copping a feel. Besides, there’s nothing there to cop. You’ve got, like, no ass.”
    I managed to get my leg out after several awkward tries that included banging my head against the sill twice and jarring my shoulder. A moment later, my foot found the ledge and I let go of the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. It wasn’t easy, but I extracted myself from the window—everything except my left hand, which was still attached to Shaun’s right one.
    A loud noise came from beyond the bathroom door. “Move it! I think they made it past the door.”
    Shaun peered out the window and took a deep breath, stuffing his leather jacket through the hole. “Hold this,” he said, swinging a leg out.
    He reached up and grabbed the rim of the window, yanking my arm and bracing himself as he hefted upward. With the extra leverage, he was able to swing his legs through. It was a tight fit, but it was working.
    He managed to shimmy out an inch at a time, right hand awkwardly hanging out the window while the left was above his head, still in the room trying to keep him steady. His feet touched the ledge, shoulders slipping past the sill, as the bathroom door crashed inward.
    “Grab them!” someone shouted.
    I tugged on his right arm as a tall man with an angry scowl and a buzz cut came forward and yanked hard on the left. Shaun leaned toward me, but he was at an odd angle—torso still between the ledge and the room—so it didn’t do much good. Slowly, inch by inch, we were losing and he was slipping back inside. If they dragged him in, then I was right behind.
    Giving another, harder pull, I teetered to the left, almost losing my balance. For a second, everything froze. I hovered on the rim of the ledge, not off it—but not on it, either. The only thing that kept me from toppling over the side was Shaun. He’d jerked back on his arm—the one I was attached to—and I shot forward, face smashing hard against the building. The brick bit into tender flesh, stinging my lower lip as my