14
The sharp bleat of a ringing cell phone woke her up. Claudia grabbed for her hip, but instead found her arm pinned down and nerveless, burdened by the man who had slept on it all night.
Michael opened his eyes at the second ring and tried to sit up. He was stopped by the black tactical rope woven over their sky-high cocoon and collapsed back onto her, placing an elbow in her overfull kidney.
After a bit more scrabbling around, she managed to get her arm free and began rubbing it back to life. He reached out through the rope lacing and found the tied-off rucksack to extract the cruelly ringing phone.
Michael mumbled something about cell reception before he answered.
“Michael Gibson?”
Claudia could hear the woman’s voice easily since they were still crammed together in the sleeping
