Page 53 of Creed

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“Where are they?” I practically spit in his face, kneeling over him to pin him down as I dug the stick harder into his shoulder.

The man squirmed and cursed as he clutched at the stick, trying to keep it from piercing any deeper. I watched in satisfaction as blood oozed from the wound and dripped onto the forest floor.

But then, terrifyingly, the man smiled up at me.

My instincts flashed a warning at me, begging me to run away, but before I could move, I felt a prick in the side of my neck. Reaching up, I pulled a familiar dart out of my flesh.

Fuck.

It was a trap.

They’d pretended to find Kayden to lure me out, and I’d walked right into it.

Dizziness immediately swarmed me, making the world around me seem to spin. I tried to run, but I didn’t get more than two steps before my legs went numb and I fell. I didn’t even feel it when my face slammed into the loose stones and dirt lining the riverbed. My consciousness fled and darkness consumed my vision, and last thing I noticed was the sound of approaching footsteps.

I awoketo a pounding headache and the feeling of cold metal around my wrist.

Not again, I groaned in my head while on the outside I didn’t utter a sound.

“Awake?” the familiar voice of Chester Grieve asked.

Even though I hadn’t reacted in any way, not even opening my eyes, he somehow knew the moment I returned to consciousness.

I still didn’t bother to open my eyes, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, and simply said “Fuck off.”

The other man merely chuckled. “Oh, I will, shortly. I can assure you that.”

Now that I was more awake, I realized I felt strange. My mouth was dry, and my nerves buzzed under my skin. This wasn’t just the after effects of being knocked unconscious. Something was wrong.

Finally opening my eyes, I wasn’t surprised to find myself in a completely nondescript room. It wasn’t the same room where Kayden and I had been locked up, but other than that, I had no idea where I was.

When I tried to sit up, I found my wrists handcuffed above my head, stretched out to either side. Based on the softness under me, I assumed I was lying on a bed, so my wrists must be attached to the headboard.

I glared at Chester Grieve with all the strength I could muster. “What did you do to me? Where’s Kayden?”

Both questions practically spilled out of me at the same time, each equally important. I wasn’t sure which I wanted him to answer first, but I was certain that I would hate anything he had to say.

The other man rocked back a bit in his wheelchair, almost looking like he was thinking. “I have no idea where your friend is, but he’s of no concern. I’m more interested in you.”

Rolling over to a side table just at the edge of my line of sight, he pulled out of folder from the drawer. I recognized the folder and wasn’t surprised when he returned and held up photos of Lisianthus’s journal for me to see.

“You took the journal with you, so I assume you’ve managed to crack the code and have some idea of what it said. Find anything interesting?”

I would have spit in the man’s face if he was close enough, but I settled for a mocking smile. “Yes. I know what you’re looking for. What the Milford sisters stole from you.”

As expected, Chester Grieve’s expression twitched with annoyance when he heard the name “Milford,” but he didn’t get angry like I’d hoped.

“Oh? So, the journal mentioned that?”

The chains on my wrists rattled as I tested their strength. “Yeah. Although, I gotta say. It’s kinda misleading to say they stole from you. They just left. I’m sure, if they could have chosen not to be pregnant at the time, they would have.”

I’d been shocked when I came to that part of the journal, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. All three sisters had been married off to the cult founder. It was no surprise that pregnancy would soon follow. The only shocking thing, aside from the girls’ young age, was the fact that they’d all ended up pregnant around the same time.

No wonder they’d chosen to escape when they did. They were staring down the barrel of their future as a trio of baby factories for the cult, and they decided enough was enough.

As a man, I couldn’t fully empathize with the difficulties of pregnancy, but it must have been difficult. Based on stories Brody and Magnus had told me about theMothers of the Mountain, the three sisters hadn’t been pregnant when they arrived in Emberwood.

Had they found somewhere safe to go, or had they stayed out there, alone, in the forest as each of them gave birth?