Myra took the sharp rose thorn and pressed it into Justin's thumb. He caught his breath slightly, but would not show Myra that he was weak and felt the pain. Smiling, Myra stabbed her own thumb with a quick thrust. Moving closer, they pressed bloody thumbs together, then their lips. “It was a kiss of youth” as Myra was ten and Justin is nine years old. It was Myra's idea to do this and he could never deny her. “From now on they would be tied together forever.” That was their promise to each other. Two people linked by an inescapable bond that draws them together if one needed the other, no matter how much time or distance came between them.
Then years later, what if you learned that the girl you once knew when you were both children is a hostage of escaped murders. Would you stand by helpless, or if you had the means to rescue her, would you try? Even if trying meant you had to jump from an airplane at 15,000 feet into the heart of an Arizona mountain range, all the time battling the treacherous arid land, hordes of fire ants, wolves, and those desperate men trying to kill you as you try to fulfill a blood oath made as a nine-year-old boy.
