The Hunted Girls by Jenna Kernan (best book club books for discussion txt) 📕

tucked her knees against her chest and scooted up until her head touched the lid. Further pushing did not dislodge the top. So she concentrated on holding her knees to her chest to preserve body heat and on keeping her nose out of the water.

Nadine ignored the signs that her core temperature was dropping. Unfortunately, Juliette had once told her about some of her experiences in New Hampshire during her residency. They’d had people who fell through thin ice, slid off snow-covered roads and froze to death inside their vehicles. But the one Juliette obsessed on was a young girl who had been hiking out ahead of her family and taken a wrong turn. By the time the parents realized she was not on the correct trail and walked out to get help, the temperature had dropped to fifty degrees with a light mist. Not cold, but cold enough. The girl had died of exposure despite the temperature being well above freezing.

“Because she was wet and because she never took shelter.”

Nadine couldn’t feel her hands or feet. They didn’t hurt anymore, but they should hurt. The thought of gangrene sent the first shiver over her in hours. Her teeth no longer tapped against the gag, and she felt warmer.

Perhaps hugging her knees was working?

She opened her eyes and realized the rain no longer dripped into her watery tomb. The sky seemed dark gray, lighter than the interior. Morning was nearing. He’d stop. He’d help her.

But would he?

If she was right, he meant to possess her. Not kill her.

But what if she was wrong?

Where’s Jack? Had he left the agent behind or killed him?

She thought of the moment she’d seen the Huntsman in her room and dropped the cat.

Her opinion of Muffin had changed again. Nadine decided there was a reason there are no guard cats.

Useless piece of fluff. Molly would never have let that happen. She’d have… licked the intruder’s face and brought him her chewy toy, she thought. But at least Nadine would have known he was there.

The truck swerved again and then slowed to a stop. Nadine sucked in a breath and held it as the water sloshed over her nose. The vehicle turned and continued at a much slower pace. She knew exactly when they reached the jeep trail from the number of ruts.

Nadine refused to drown on the last few miles. Then she slipped from the wall and back to her side. Submerged.

She thrashed. Holding her breath as pinpricks of light exploded behind her closed eyelids. Her legs no longer responded to her commands. Her arms were useless.

I’m sorry, Clint, she thought as she fought against the urge to breathe. Her life was now measured in heartbeats and the seconds she could resist her body’s hungry demands for oxygen.

The tub slid, scraping the solid surface beneath her. Light flooded in as the lid fell away. Nadine turned her head to see a blurry form and then the tub crashed to its side, spilling the water and disgorging Nadine onto the ground.

“Nadine!” His frantic voice seemed far away.

She gagged. Unable to draw enough air through her nose.

He roughly tore the tape from her mouth and yanked away the gag. Just in time, as she spewed water and the contents of her stomach. Coughing and sputtering.

“I’m so sorry. The airholes. I didn’t realize. I should have put a hole in the bottom.”

Nadine continued to choke and gag as he rubbed her back.

“You’re freezing,” he said.

He left her there. Nadine’s neck ached. The rest of her body seemed carved of wood.

Her captor returned, wrapping her in a blanket and hoisting her into his arms. Only then did she realize she was not in a truck but in the bottom of a flat-bottomed boat, towed behind a pickup truck. She glanced around, the adrenaline now surging through her, waking her brain from its stupor.

This might be her only chance to see her surroundings.

Everything she observed only deepened her terror. They were in deep forest on an elevated jeep trail, under the canopy of interlocking branches with broad rounded leaves. Not oak, she realized, so she was no longer in Central Florida. A glance at the roots of the trees gave her the answer. They arched over each other like croquet wickets gone mad, covering the ground in a wild tangle that terminated in glistening silver water. Mangrove trees. One of the few plants that could survive the salt water of inlets, bays and the mouths of Florida’s rivers. With the change of tide, the roots would vanish, submerging with everything but the elevated road. Beside the jeep trail, and just above the tideline, scrub palmetto squatted.

Nadine craned her neck.

Low tide. But which coast?

The Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic? Or it could be the Florida Everglades. One and a half million acres of wetlands, the river of grass that was exactly the opposite direction that the authorities would assume he had gone. They’d be closing roads and airports to the north, shutting off arteries leading out of the state. They’d be searching vehicles at roadblocks. And she’d be lost in one of the most inaccessible places in the entire state.

A mangrove forest.

She knew such places were unlike any other forest on earth because between their trunks and the mud below, the tidal water constantly flowed. It was possible to walk from branch to branch, but you would never touch the ground because there was no ground. Only the brackish water. Where the tidal surge flowed fast, channels formed through the trees. But in still waters, like these, the passage had to be laboriously cleared. These trees were so special, so important, that damaging them was illegal.

But someone had cut these—recently.

The three-foot-wide tunnel before her showed that. And here on an empty coastal road, she knew this aquatic corridor was not part of any park service trail. The nearly imperceptible break in the foliage would be invisible to motorists. But she saw it and it terrified her. Once he took them