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

stomach released its meager contents. His touch only made her more desperate to vomit. She heaved until her throat burned and her mouth filled with the taste of bile.

He drew a bandana out and wiped her mouth.

“You always get seasick?”

She nodded.

“I’ll have to get you something for that.”

Why? she wondered. Were they going somewhere else in that damned metal coffin?

She groaned and he eased her to her knees. Nadine let her cheek rest on the worn wood. In the dim gray light of morning, she peered at a shack constructed of vertical boards so old the lumber had turned gray and moss clung to the wood with the lichen. Where was Jack?

She craned her neck, spotting him, now a motionless lump beneath the dirty blanket.

“You’re freezing. Seems that sack of shit isn’t even good as a handwarmer.”

He easily swept her up into his arms and strode inside. The darkness blinded her. Gradually her eyes adjusted, and she recognized a woodstove and a cot. A small table stood beside the stove with two ancient chairs. Curls of peeling paint clung to the wooden legs. On the center of the table sat a plant in a rusted tin can set on a chunk of firewood. She blinked at the feathery white bloom, recognizing it instantly, though never having seen one in person.

A ghost orchid. The rarest bloom in the entire state, some thought in the world. The long lower petals were two feet in length and slightly twisted.

“Started that one for you over a year ago,” he said.

So she’d been right. He’d planned this for at least a year, targeting her. The chill now crept into her heart.

“You like it? Folks say you can’t keep them. But you can if the conditions are right. It’s a white frog orchid.”

“Ghost orchid,” she said, momentarily marveling at its beauty. The endangered bloom belonged fixed to a tree somewhere deep in the glades, beyond the reach of man.

Was that where she was now?

He lowered her to the cot and opened the grate on the stove. He’d set the makings for a fire. A carefully arranged pyramid of wood captured dry kindling at the center. The man had his back to her as he struck the match.

The clothing he wore was unremarkable, a blue T-shirt and loose-fitting jeans. His mesh ball cap sported a camouflage pattern and his worn work boots were wet, with bits of grass and fern clinging to his pant legs.

With the fire crackling, he turned to her. Her eyes widened as he withdrew a knife from the leather carrier on his belt. Then he sliced the tethers connecting her hands and feet.

“Got to get you warmed up.” He tugged her from the cot.

She fought him but was too weak as he cut away her wet T-shirt and tossed it aside. She slept in only that shirt and so she was now naked.

He straightened to stare.

“My God, Nadine. You’re beautiful.” He grasped her torso and she stilled as a new panic flooded her, choking her so she could not breathe.

His hands slid down her sides, stopping at the flare of her hips, nodding in approval.

“Perfect,” he said. “I knew you would be.”

Then his thumb grazed over the pink, puckered scar left by the bullet from the last killer she’d profiled. Her skin crawled and screamed with disgust.

“To think something so small could have taken you from me,” he mused.

He straightened, releasing her. Nadine inched back.

Then he tugged off his shirt and joined her on the cot. She rolled away, giving him her back, but he easily dragged her against him.

“I need to warm you.”

“Let me go,” she said.

The stubble on his chin scratched against her temple as he shook his head.

“Lay still or I’ll tie you again.”

She forced herself to be still. She was weakened from the journey and could barely feel her limbs.

He dragged a down sleeping bag over them. Gradually the feeling returned to her arms. Her skin stippled and the trembling began. She jerked and shook as he held her. When the feeling returned to her feet and hands, she cried out. The slightest movement brought excruciating pain.

“You’ll be all right. You’re little, but strong. Folks underestimate you, I’ll bet.”

As the sensation returned, she developed an insatiable thirst. The dryness in her mouth made her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth.

She needed to think how to play this. Making demands and threats was useless. All she knew for certain was that he didn’t want her dead—yet. Beyond that, all she had was theories. Time to get some answers.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

“Thirsty,” she said, her voice a mere whisper.

He rolled to his feet and retrieved a jug, pulled the cork stopper and poured from it into a tin cup.

Inside her mind, a siren of warning blared. This was the Huntsman. He’d killed six women and now he had her. Her breathing came in shuddering gasps as fear pricked at her skin like nettles.

“I’m sorry it’s not cold. No refrigeration out here, I’m afraid.” His back was to her.

It gave her the moment she needed to grab her composure and wrestle it to the surface. He would not respond to weakness and cowering. No predator did.

Nadine had lived with a killer before. If she could negotiate that as a child, how much better equipped was she now?

He turned, holding the cup and paused, meeting her gaze. She forced her expression to curiosity, banishing the disgust in favor of a haughty affectation. He was an interesting specimen, a patient already in custody that she’d been asked to evaluate.

She took her first good look at him. He was as normal and unexceptional as she would have anticipated. This was the sort of man one would glimpse and immediately dismiss as inconsequential. He was not big or handsome. Neither was he small or ugly.

She’d guessed he was five-seven and less than 170 pounds, slim, with heavy muscle on his bare chest and torso. His golden-brown skin glistened with moisture, making him