Tower in the Woods Read Online Free Page A

little experience with other people, and she had no idea how to interrogate him. Twisting her around his little finger was going to be a piece of cake. He moved closer, and when she didn’t make any adjustment to her position in response he did it again.
    “I told you to stop.” There was fear in that voice; he recognized it distinctly. She knew he had the upper hand, and she had no idea what to do in this situation. If she didn’t shoot him soon she was going to lose any ability to do so.
    “You’re not going to shoot me. You’ve never shot a human, have you, sweetheart?” Dane responded calmly, the flicker of panic in those eyes confirming his suspicion. The jig was up. The sniper just hadn’t accepted it yet. Adrenaline coursed through him, readying his body for a fight. This mission was going to be a great deal of fun.
    “My name is Nel,” she finally said, clearly objecting to being called a sweetheart.
    Dane wondered why. Little Nel looked so sweet he wanted to eat her up, and he couldn’t possibly be the first person in her life to have vocalized that. She had one of those faces that made her look younger than she was, so he had initially pegged her to be twenty at most. Now that he had carefully looked at her for a good long while, he wasn’t quite as certain about his initial assessment. It may just be wishful thinking, for he would rather Nel be much closer to his own age than not. It would make him feel less like a bastard for what he was about to do to her.
    Pitching his voice lower in order to appear less threatening, he replied, “I’m Dane. Dane Prince. Nel, I want you to put down that gun.”
    Again, Nel looked utterly confused by his words. “It’s not a gun, it’s a pistol,” she corrected as she took a step back, almost tripping over a wooden crate on the floor.
    Dane took a moment to look around, realizing immediately that the room was extremely cramped. It was also abundantly clear Nel was some sort of hoarder. There were enough supplies in this small space to last a year, a few more if she was careful about the rationing. Oddly enough, there were also quite a number of books scattered around. He hadn’t initially pegged little Nel as being the intellectual type. Too bad she hadn’t been born in the capitol. Squints like her were hard to come by, and they were almost all recruited into the FMA immediately after completing the aptitude test.
    Once Dane’s mind processed the information his quick glance around the room gathered, however, realization began to dawn. Perhaps the girl was simply more precise with her language than most people he knew. It would make perfect sense if she had learned more of her vocabulary through reading rather than speaking. Being trained as a soldier Dane couldn’t help but acknowledge his language had been quite inaccurate. Moving another step forward, he replied, “You’re right, Nel. Guns are in ships and very big. Have you ever seen one?”
    Nel shook her pretty little head, clearly feeling trapped. Her voice came out more high-pitched than before, and Dane knew he had her just where he wanted her. She was shaking like a leaf, probably due to a combination of the cold and his presence, and it was apparent to both of them that as long as she didn’t use her weapon she was nowhere near being his physical match. “I’ve seen pictures. Please, don’t come any farther. I don’t want to hurt you.”
    Dane almost laughed at her words as he purposefully pushed his chest into the barrel of the sidearm, perfectly positioning himself for the attack he had been planning since he crawled through the window. “You’re not going to hurt me. I know that now. You’re not a killer, you’re just a girl.”
    “I’m too old to be called a girl,” little Nel said as she struggled to breathe, her body responding to his proximity whether she knew it or not.
    She was right, Dane realized as he observed the maturity of that heart-stopping face. She was closer to