Midnight Rainbow Read Online Free PDF

began to rise in her, and she took deep breaths in an effort to stave off throwing up. If she began to vomit, with her mouth taped the way it was, she could suffocate. Desperately she began to struggle, knowing only that she needed to get into an upright position.
    â€œEasy there, Pris.” Somehow he seemed to know how she was feeling. He stopped and lifted her off his shoulder, easing her onto her back on the ground. When her weight came down on her bound arms she couldn’t suppress a whimper of pain. “All right,” the man said. “I’m going to cut you loose now, but if you start acting up, I’ll truss you up like a Christmas turkey again and leave you that way. Understand?”
    She nodded wildly, wondering if he could see her in the dark. Evidently he could, because he turned her on her side and she felt a knife slicing through the tape that bound her wrists. Tears stung her eyes from the pain as he pulled herarms around and began massaging them roughly to ease her cramped muscles.
    â€œYour daddy sent me to get you out of here,” the man drawled calmly as he began easing the tape off of her mouth. Instead of ripping the adhesive away and taking skin with it, he was careful, and Jane was torn between gratitude and indignation, since he’d taped her mouth in the first place.
    Jane moved her mouth back and forth, restoring it to working condition. “My daddy?” she asked hoarsely.
    â€œYeah. Okay, now, Pris, I’m going to free your legs, but if you look like you’re even thinking about kicking me again, I won’t be as easy with you as I was the last time.” Despite his drawl, there was something menacing in his tone, and Jane didn’t doubt his word.
    â€œI wouldn’t have kicked you the first time if you hadn’t started pawing at me like a high school sophomore!” she hissed.
    â€œI was checking to see if you were breathing.”
    â€œSure you were, and taking your time about it, too.”
    â€œGagging you was a damned good idea,” he said reflectively, and Jane shut up. She had yet to see him as anything more than a shadow. She couldn’t even put a name to him, but she knew enough about him to know that he would bind and gag her again without a moment’s compunction.
    He cut the tape from around her ankles, and again she was subjected to his rough but effective massage. In only a moment she was being pulled to her feet; she staggered momentarily before regaining her sense of balance.
    â€œWe don’t have much farther to go; stay right behind me, and don’t say a word.”
    â€œWait!” Jane whispered frantically. “How can I follow you when I can’t see you?”
    He took her hand and carried it to his waist. “Hang on to my belt.”
    She did better than that. Acutely aware of the vast jungle around her, and with only his presence shielding her from the night terrors, she hooked her fingers inside the waistband of his pants in a death grip. She knotted the material so tightly that he muttered a protest, but she wasn’t about to let go of him.
    Maybe it didn’t seem very far to him, but to Jane, being towed in his wake, stumbling over roots and vines that she couldn’t see, it seemed like miles before he halted. “We’ll wait here,” he whispered. “I don’t want to go any closer until I hear the helicopter come in.”
    â€œWhen will that be?” Jane whispered back, figuring that if he could talk, so could she.
    â€œA little after dawn.”
    â€œWhen is dawn?”
    â€œHalf an hour.”
    Still clutching the waistband of his pants, she stood behind him and waited for dawn. The seconds and minutes crawled by, but they gave her the chance to realize for the first time that she’d truly escaped from Turego. She was safe and free…well almost. She was out of his clutches, she was the only one who knew what a close call she’d had.