Return Of The Heiress For Revenge - Chapter 522
Chapter 522: Save Her!
Nora bit down on her sleeve, silencing the gasp rising in her throat. Her body shivered violently, not just from cold now but from fear. One wrong move, one rustle, and they would find her.
The footsteps moved past her but She didn’t move. But the phone in her hands kept buzzing again and again.
“…hear me? Nora? Talk to me!”
She swallowed thickly. Her voice was dry, a rasp from her cracked throat. She pressed the phone to her lips again, praying her whisper would be enough.
“I am near the highway that leads to Bargham. I ran to the woods off the main road through a broken trail. Help me please!” the random sound coming out of the phone suddenly disappeared, making her breath hitch.
The phone screen blinked. She covered it with her hands and wanted to plead again when she noticed two words on the upper most corner.
“No Service.” the signal was gone.
“No,” she whispered with a pale look as she covered her wounds.
The faintest rustle behind her made her blood run cold. She dared a glance over the log.
A figure stood at the edge of the clearing, flashlight pointed low, unmoving. For a second she was sure that their gaze matched and she lost her breath. The drugs were making it hard for her to stand, if they attacked her now, she would not even be able to forget about fighting. She clenched her hands, ready for the challenge when the man smirked.
Then, slowly, the figure turned and moved away, calling out, “Nothing here. Keep moving!”
Nora let out the tiniest exhale of relief and collapsed fully against the cold earth. Her hands curled tighter around the dead phone, and though her body ached and darkness threatened to take her again, she didn’t close her eyes.
That man had seen her but he let her go. She wanted to drag her body out but she did not know where she should go.
She found a sharp stone in the mud and held it tightly just in case as she heard their whispers slowly fading away.
Just as she thought, the man returned after distracting others from there.
“How much?” she whispered before he could ask anything.. The man blinked. He scratched his chin from the gun and then chuckled in a low voice.
“You are smart!” he commented as she crouched near her. His gaze roamed over her exposed skin. Her raw, bruised, streaked with dirt pale skin was still enticing. He licked his lips and she fought the urge to recoil. She met his eyes instead with her jaw clenched and frosty eyes.
“My girlfriend’s been whining for an apartment in the city center for a long time,” he said, dragging a gloved hand down his face as if weighing his options. “Guess I could finally get her to shut up.”
Nora grit her teeth, every inch of her recoiling at the idea. But she nodded. “Fine,” she rasped. “You will have it.”
He chuckled, low and lazy, as if this were a joke. “You don’t even know if you will live long enough to sign the papers, sweetheart.”
“Help me then,” she said in a cracking voice.
But he shook his head with amusement, never leaving his face. “I can not do that. The maximum I can offer is to keep my mouth shut. I will help you hide here and distract them so that they could not find you, That’s it. Dragging you out means they will spot us both, and I am not dying for your pretty face.”
“I already said you will get the damn apartment,” she hissed through her teeth.
“You might say it. But dead women don’t sign property deeds.”
She closed her eyes briefly as her lungs ached and her ribs throbbed. “Then at least tell me where the hell I am. Where can I go?”
He tilted his head thoughtfully. “We are near the third mile of the Bargham highway. But no one’s coming through the woods for you. Do you want help? There is only one way, you have to crawl back to the highway making sure they did not see you and then beg for light there. Get to the highway, wave someone down. Maybe they will stop looking at your pretty face or maybe they won’t.”
“You bastard,” she whispered, glaring at the smirk on his lips.
She forced herself to sit up straighter. “Give me your phone at least. Let me call someone.”
He barked a laugh. “You want me to risk my life and my phone so you can get caught and squeal everything?”
“If I die out here,” she said, forcing the words through her cracked throat, “you don’t get anything. Would it not be better to help me after the risk you have taken? If they knew it was you who helped me, they would not let you go out unscathed. Do they?”
His expression froze and the smirk faltered. For a moment, he just looked at her with a calculating, suspicious glare before looking away at the men. They were still searching for her. She was right, they would find her if they did not do something and then he would not get any benefit from the risk he had taken.
The man sighed and nodded.
“You know what? Fine. you have my phone but you only have the chance to make one call and i am snatching it back if i felt any trick there.”
He pulled the phone from his coat and handed it to her, the screen was already unlocked.
“One call,” he repeated. “Make it count.”
Nora’s hands trembled as she took the phone. Her fingers were half-numb and slippery with grime and dried blood, but she managed to dial Max’s number.
“Please…” she whispered, pressing the phone hard to her ear as her body swayed. The call was connected but the signal was still weak.
“Nora! Is that you? We left for the highway. I will be there soon.”