Born To Be Wild Read Online Free PDF Page A

purple. Obviously a girl’s room.
    But why was she in it?
    Desperate to get out of the unfamiliar room, desperate to get home, she went to the window and saw that she was on the second floor. No easy way down. There was a tree, but it was too far away to climb out onto a limb.
    She would have to jump…maybe miss.
    Thinking about it made her stomach twirl.
    What if she fell and got hurt all over again? She was barely healed from the bus accident on the outside. And inside…
    Fear soured her mouth, stopping her from even trying.
    This time she might not be so lucky.
    This time she might be like those other kids.
    This time she might be dead .

Chapter Three
    “We should get something to eat,” Micah said. It was after ten and no one was walking the streets on their route.
    “How can you even think about eating?”
    He glanced at Isabel. Even in just the moonlight, she looked pale and overly stressed. She needed to eat. “We need to keep up our strength. For Lucy.”
    “I’m not hungry.”
    “We don’t have to be hungry. We just have to get the food down.” He made a turn, swinging the truck onto a road that would take them away from the center of town, down to the main drag with plenty of places to get something to eat. “Taco, burger, or chicken?”
    “For a minute there, I thought you were going to tell me you’d learned to cook.”
    “I do cook. Out on the range, a man has to eat. I do a lot of things I didn’t used to do.”
    Like standing up to his father, he thought with a stab of residual anger. If only he’d had the backbone to do that twelve years ago…
    But there was no use focusing on regrets right now.
    “Taco, burger, or fried chicken?” he asked again.
    Isabel sighed. “Your choice.”
    Micah drove to a fast food place that had all three, and leaving Isabel in the truck to call her family, he went inside and ordered some of everything.
    No matter what, he was going to get food into Isabel. She couldn’t function without fuel. And not without sleep, either. No doubt she’d fight him on that, too. He was just as worried about Lucy as she was, but he also knew they had to take extra care of themselves, or they wouldn’t be able to concentrate properly while searching for their daughter.
    When he got back into the truck, Micah put the huge bag on the backseat. Isabel was just finishing a conversation on her cell.
    “Okay, Poppi. I promise I’ll call the minute I hear anything.” She listened a second, then said, “I love you, too.” With a broken sigh, she let her hand holding the cell drop into her lap. “I tried Mama again and had to leave another message. I don’t know why she hasn’t called me back.”
    “Maybe something is wrong with her cell.” A shame, Micah thought, because Isabel could use her mother’s support. Starting the truck, he said, “I need to call my family, as well.”
    “You should do that.” Isabel’s voice went flat.
    Since he used the truck’s speaker system to call hands-free, Isabel could hear everything, though she stared out the passenger side window as if trying to distract herself. She didn’t like his father any more than he liked hers. Thankfully, Dad didn’t say anything to set her off. His whole family had gathered together to await any news.
    “If the police haven’t found her by daybreak, we’ll start again,” Micah said. Inconceivable that his daughter should be out there all alone in the dark. Or maybe not alone. He couldn’t go there . “We’ll go back to the school, find someone who can tell us what happened.”
    “You’re gonna find her,” Gramps said. “We’re gonna get our girl back.”
    “I’ll call the moment we know anything,” Micah promised.
    By the time he clicked off, he was pulling up in front of Isabel’s house.
    Looking like death warmed over, she was hardly able to swing open the truck door.
    Protective instincts stirring despite himself—he knew better than to let down his guard—Micah leaped from his