Page 233 of Crucible

Khalil.

My lips part to answer his call, but I don’t allow myself to make a sound and stay hidden for some reason. Before I can examine the reason, Khalil yells again.

“Fuck!” he explodes, and I imagine him looking over the ledge and spotting Finnegan.

“What?” Seth demands. “What do you see?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know! It’s…she’s…there’s blood, man. A lot of it. Someone’s down there. It’s too far to tell…”

“AURELIAAAAA!” Thorin roars.

My chest caves with relief while my stomach churns with dread. I have no idea which reaction to trust while the three of them lose their shit thinking I fell to my death.

Finnegan’s words about my feelings for them not being real have been replaying in my head on a constant loop. What if he’s right? What if I’m just coping through surrender? What I tricked myself into believing I loved them?

And then there’s Seth…

I don’t know what he’s told Thorin and Khalil or what they’ll do to me once they find out.

Closing my eyes, it takes me a few seconds more to swallow down the uncertainty clogging my throat.

It was real.

So when I feel my heart calling out for them, I finally let myself push away from the wall until I’m visible. “I’m here!”

“Goldilocks!” The stricken look on Khalil’s face morphs into crippling relief when he sees me alive and in one piece. Fortunately, he doesn’t stay incapacitated for long. “Hold on, baby. We’re going to pull you up.” When I nod, he quickly disappears back over the upper ledge. A couple of minutes later, a thick red rope is slung over the side. The long length pools onto the ground by my feet, and I grab it.

“Tie that around your waist,” Khalil instructs. “And make the knot as tight as you can. I’m going to pull you up.”

“Okay.”

Once I have what I hope is a decent knot tied around my waist, I hold onto the slack, and Khalil begins to pull me up. Thorin grabs me the moment I clear the lip of the upper ledge, and he pulls me over until I collapse on top of him while breathing hard.

This feels familiar.

When I look around, I see dead bodies everywhere, but my gaze doesn’t linger on them. I search for Seth and find him standing back with his hands in his pockets like some passing bystander.

“Seth…” I climb to my feet with Khalil’s help and go to Seth. He doesn’t back away from me, but I can tell he wants to. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

“My leg is fine,” he answers evenly. “The bullet grazed me.”

I nod with a hard exhale. “Good. That’s good.”

I can feel Thorin and Khalil watching our exchange closely, and I’m again left wondering what Seth told them. Had he believed my lies when I said I didn’t love him, or am I living in a fool’s paradise thinking he might have seen through them?

“Is something up with you two?” Khalil inquires when the awkward silence stretches on.

I can’t bring myself to answer while Seth just stares at me blankly with blood on his shirt like he hadn’t just killed for me.

“Seth?” I decide to ask him instead. I need to know that he knows it was all real for me too.

Instead, he turns away, giving his back to me. “We should go,” he suggests while starting the hike back up the slope. “We need to get the supplies to clear these bodies out.”

I stand there feeling like my heart is splintering in two while Thorin and Khalil give us both weird looks.

So Seth hadn’t told them, and yet, he obviously believes all those things I said in the dell. The only question is…why hadn’t he ratted me out?

“Come on,” Thorin softly orders while taking my elbow.

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