Rescuing Liberty: Perseverance Book 1 by Amanda Washington

head in
disbelief, he went to investigate.
    Sure enough, Liberty and Ashley had
started a fire. By the time Connor reached them, Liberty was
holding her deadly skillet over flames while Ashley poured a white,
gooey mess from a plastic bag into the pan.
    “ Seriously?” Ashley asked as she
tilted the baggie up. “This will make pancakes?”
    What does she think she’s
doing? Connor wondered, his fists clenching as he approached.
    “ Good morning Sunshine,” Liberty said
with a Cheshire grin.
    Sunshine? Connor scowled. What
stupid game is she playing now?
    “ Hey, Déjà vu,” he replied. “The only
thing we’re missing is your creepy boyfriend. Did he miss the cue
or is he coming later?”
    Her smile only widened. “He couldn’t
make today’s performance.” She jiggled the handle of the pan. “Care
to take his place?”
    Connor felt heat rush to his face as
his temper flared. “Just giving you a friendly reminder of what
happened the last time you made a fire. So … suicidal or stupid?
Are you intentionally endangering the life of my niece? Or are you
so thick-skulled you didn’t even realize that’s what you’re
doing?”
    Her smile turned into a teeth-bearing
snarl and her eyes sparked a warning as they narrowed. Her knuckles
turned white around the handle of the frying pan, and Connor took a
step back, just to be safe.
    “ Ash, take this.” Liberty passed the
handle to the girl and shuffled through her pack, pulling out a
large spoon. She haphazardly flipped the pancake, getting little
specks of batter all over the place. “Oh, thank goodness you found
us in time!” She gasped. “What on earth would we do without The
Incredible Connor Dunstan to take care of us?”
    Ashley giggled.
    Connor could feel his teeth grinding
against each other. He consciously forced them apart and said,
“This is foolish. Your immaturity is a danger to us
all.”
    “ How dare you! I have
been watching my own back now for the full ten years of my adult
life. I don’t need your protection, I don’t need your manipulation,
and I don’t need you.”
    He blinked. Last night her
gaze had been heavy with understanding and tainted by pity. Now she
was freaking out on him because he was trying to keep them
safe? Multiple personalities?
Bipolar?
    She calmly removed the
pancake from the frying pan, placed it on a cleaned, flat rock, and
dumped more batter into the pan. The cakes were a little thin, but
the fragrance infected Connor’s brain and tickled his taste buds.
His stomach rumbled, but Liberty was too busy growling to
notice. When did I last have
pancakes?
    “ You are not in
command of this expedition. I will not take orders from you, and you
do not h ave the
right to pull my strings, Geppetto.” She stood directly in front of
his face, with her index finger digging into his chest. “We are
always in peril. We hide in shadows, sleep in bushes, and are on
the move constantly. Should we give up everything that makes us
happy in order to survive? If that’s your idea of survival, I don’t
want it. I’d rather be happily dead.” She went back to preparing
the food. “Right now, the promise of pancakes makes me pretty
happy.”
    Connor watched her. To him, the risk
of discovery and death seemed like a hefty price to pay for a meal.
But he and Ashley had never starved. Their supplies had held out
and he had always been able to find whatever they needed. It
occurred to him that he knew almost nothing about Liberty. She
could have been starving in the sewers or running for her life
before he met her. Still, she needed to understand the
danger.
    “ You could have been killed,” he said,
knowing there was no way she could have held off the man from the
previous day if he’d attacked her. “Or worse.”
    “ I had a plan and I was taking care of
it!” Her voice was one decibel shy of yelling. “Did you not see the
skillet to the head?” She took a deep breath, but it didn’t stop
her temper from coloring her cheeks.