Destiny Calls Read Online Free PDF Page A

and she gritted her teeth as her headache began to radiate into her neck and arms. As she dropped the cough drop wrapper, her clue for anyone who might venture this far looking for her, she was dismayed to see the wind pick up the offering and carry it away as if it never existed. Would she cease to exist after today?
    The man moved past her without a word and began taking confident steps down the steep rock path of the mountain. When Destiny spotted her purse hanging from his large hand, her feet kicked into gear. She awkwardly reached for branches and jutting bits of rock to steady her climb down the hill. He was moving too fast for her.
    Within ten minutes she was winded and really wished she had kept up with her Zumba classes. Her lungs burned from the cold air. Her scalp began to sweat which only chilled her body more. Although she couldn’t turn enough to survey the damage done to her back, her shirt had been rendered nothing more than a thin smock.
    She slid on a smooth layering of slate and reached awkwardly for a branch that wasn’t there. Realizing too late that she was going to fall, she did her best to protect her back and turned quickly. Rock cut into her palms, and her knees smacked painfully into the ground. The way her body had twisted saved her back from taking the brunt of the fall, but still caused her a sharp stab of pain. Enough. She couldn’t take any more.
    Her face crumpled as she sniffled and batted her sore palms over her thighs. She pushed her useless coat aside and stubbornly pulled her feet in front of her. She began to pick out bits of gravel from the fleshy part of her hand. She was bleeding again. Her knuckles were chapped, and she was pretty sure her fingertips shouldn’t be white. She was going to get frostbite and die here.
    “Why are you stopped?” the man demanded from about twenty feet ahead of her. She ignored him. He huffed and turned, his heavy footfalls pounding into the earth with each exasperated step. She refused to look at him. “Destiny, what are you doing?”
    “Sitting,” she said petulantly as she spread her ragged coat over her legs.
    “I know you’re sitting. Why?”
    “Because I’m not going any farther. I’m freezing, weak, and hurt. I need to get to a doctor, and I need to talk to the police.” She reached into her pocket at her hip and pulled out her phone. Hoping she could manage some sort of signal, she removed the back, slid the battery out of its place and inserted it back in. Sometimes if she did this, she could trick the phone into thinking it still had a little life.
    “Get up, Destiny.”
    She ignored him. She held down the power button and tried to steady her fingers as the phone turned on. She just needed to get a signal enough for the call to go through. If she heard a 911 dispatch operator pick up, she would simply shout that she was in Jim Thorpe trapped at the top of a mountain. Maybe there was GPS stuff they could use to find her call location.
    As the power came on, she focused. Her settings loaded, and she quickly dialed 9-1—
    The phone was suddenly ripped out of her hand. It flew into the oppressive gray sky, traveling like a hummingbird over the trees until it faded into a black speck and likely landed on the floor of the forest.
    “ Hey! ”
    The man stared down at her angrily. “I said no calls.”
    “I don’t care! I’m not moving! Do you know how much that phone cost? You’re replacing it!”
    His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. His jaw ticked. He still wasn’t wearing a shirt, yet he didn’t seem to be bothered by the freezing temperatures or the wind. He was much bigger than her and at the moment quite formidable. Destiny swallowed.
    “I am only going to tell you one more time. Get up.”
    She straightened her shoulders and gritted her teeth through the pain crawling up her back. Chin held high, she said, “I’m. Not. Moving.”
    “That’s it.”
    A squeak hiccupped past her lips as she suddenly found