No Easy Way Out Read Online Free PDF Page B

survived.”
    Marco glanced back at him. “You’re lucky.”
    Beyond the curtain wall was a makeshift hallway. The entire sales floor had apparently been divided into “rooms” using curtains salvaged from the PaperClips.
    “Which way?” Ryan asked.
    “Does it matter?” Marco said, feeling defeated. He turned onto the hall leading away from the front of the store, hoping security was stationed there and nowhere else.
    They’d checked five rooms when voices reached them from another part of the curtain complex: “An unauthorized entry was logged through a door off the service halls. We’re looking for a fugitive.”
    Ryan grabbed Marco and dragged him into the nearest room. Through some wonderful twist of fate, the room contained Shay and her sister, both asleep on hospital beds.
    Ryan’s face fell. “Is she sick?” he whispered.
    Marco walked to her side. “No,” he said quietly, willing it to be true. “At least, she wasn’t when I left her a few hours ago.”
    Ryan stood on the other side of her bed. “She asked you to help her,” he said, staring down at her face. “Help her do what?”
    “Escape.” Marco took her hand. If there was going to be some battle between them for her, he wanted to claim ground early on.
    Ryan’s arms dangled at his side. “Did she say anything about me?”
    “She never mentioned you.” Marco was being honest. Though of course he knew about them, had seen them all lovey-dovey outside the Grill’n’Shake. And he worried, or at least a very small part of him he was trying desperately to ignore worried, that if she opened her eyes right now and saw them both, she would choose Ryan.
    • • •
    Ryan was caught between kicking Marco’s ass for touching his girlfriend and concern that the dweeb had actually, through some horrible cosmic joke, won her from him. “You obviously didn’t help her escape,” he said. “What did you do?”
    Marco raised his head slowly. “I was there for her when she needed someone. While you were off skydiving from the rafters, I saved her from being crushed in the riot.”
    Ryan did not consider himself a particularly competitive person off the football field, but seeing Marco’s grip on Shay’s fingers filled him with a primal instinct. He had an inkling of the brain-space Mike lived in every day, a place where everyone was a threat or a target, where every move you made had better put you closer to your goal. Judging by Marco’s hold on Shay’s hand, Ryan sensed that there was little Marco wouldn’t do to keep her. Ryan decided that he had better play it conservative; after all, his survival and that of Mike and Drew depended on the weasel.
    “If she’s not sick, then why is she hooked up to that machine?” Ryan asked, playing the safest card he could.
    “I told you, she got crushed in the riot. I
saved
her.”
    Footsteps stopped outside the curtain wall; Ryan dropped to the floor and crawled under Shay’s bed, sure they were looking for him. Yet when the guard stepped into the room, he said, “Marco Carvajal?”
    Marco shifted his feet—that was all Ryan could see.
    “Who’s asking?” Marco said.
    Why would security be looking for
him
?
    “The senator.” The guard stepped forward, but Marco went toward him without waiting to be dragged away.
    Ryan was thankful that Marco did not alert the guard to his presence, and merely walked with the man out of the room.
    He crawled back up to standing. Shay groaned softly. Was she having a bad dream? What horrible things had happened to her while he’d been running around like an idiot? He should have stayed with her. She needed him—not anymore, he guessed. Not now that she had Marco.
    But Shay liked him. He was sure of it. Marco had to be a stand-in at best. Ryan would win her back. A part of him wanted to shake her awake right then and demand that she dump Marco and run away with him. They would hide out in some corner together. But he didn’t let himself do it. Instead,