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smile. “Well, your hands are. I’m going to let you carry my cut and you’re going to be happy to hold it over that rope.”
    Closing my eyes, I finally understood what he was saying. “Yeah, they’re feeling cold.”
    Nodding he pulled a .45 from his bag and placed it on the seat. After he retrieved the cut from the passenger seat, he placed it over my hands and I gripped on as much as I could. When he grabbed my arm to pull me from the truck, I yelped and he let me go with an odd expression on his face.
    “What the fuck is wrong with you?” His head moved to scan the parking lot and when he was satisfied that no one had heard me, he looked back at me. “Answer me.”
    “My shoulder. I think you dislocated it.”
    “Fuck!” Whispered under his breath the word contained only a small grain of guilt. His tone seemed more annoyed than anything else. “When did that happen?”
    “After you tried cooking me in the car the first time. You came back in a really fucking bad mood or don’t you remember?”
    My eyes opened and were met by his lethal glare. Something mischievous flit across his expression and his lips curled into a mocking grin.
    “Well, I’m not sorry about that. You weren’t exactly being a good captive. Talk back and that’s the kind of shit that’ll happen. I told you to cut the shit out on the road. Ain’t my fault you didn’t listen.”
    I rolled my eyes.
    He stared at me for a few seconds before finally speaking again. “Apparently, you’re not a quick learner. Get out of the truck, Munch. You and I are going to have a good night getting to know each other.”
    Stepping out, I looked up at him, my legs barely able to hold my weight. He grabbed my uninjured arm and steadied me.
    “Try anything between here and the motel room and you’ll be meeting the reaper. Got me?”
    I nodded and took my first step when I felt the barrel of his gun press tightly against my back.

Chapter Five
    ~ JD ~

    She hobbled into the filthy motel room and I felt a twinge of guilt for having been the one to injure her. It wasn’t enough guilt to help her walk or assist in any other way, but the twinge was there.
    Slamming the door behind me, I walked to sit in a chair next to a crappy wooden desk they had on the left side of the room. She stood in the center, looking around as if she wasn’t sure where to sit. I cleared by throat to grab her attention and waved the gun in the direction of the bed. “Sit there.”
    Without a single word she complied, sitting down softly on the disgusting woolen blanket and grimacing. She kept her eyes trained to the floor and I studied the little beauty.
    The silence between us was thick and the pain in my side was becoming unbearable. Dropping my bag on the floor, I rummaged through and pulled out the bottle of Jack Daniels I’d grabbed out of Ranier’s house. Ranier was a French little fuck who was as flamboyant as they come. His hair was always greased back and every time I saw him, he had on a silk buttoned up shirt with slacks and wingtip shoes. Normally, I wouldn’t do business with the little shit, but he was the only person in town I knew who would have some decent blow. I wasn’t much into doing drugs. However, with the extra passenger I had for this trip, I needed to keep my eyes peeled because she was the type to shank me in my sleep.
    Unscrewing the lid, I tossed it to the side and tilted the bottle of to my lips. The liquor burned going down, but helped to numb the pain in my side. At this point, I wasn’t even sure if the bullet had gone straight through or it was still lodged somewhere in the muscle. I know I hadn’t been hit in anything vital, because if I had, I wouldn’t still be conscious. It was a pretty simple formula to figure out how critically you’d been injured. But damn if it wasn’t time to check it out a little closer.
    “I’m going to need you to go into the bathroom with me.” My words echoed through the quiet room and I watched as her