Page 25 of Entangled

“I— I’m doing everything I can,” I stammer, stuck in the in-between of loathing and empathy. I pull back. “Please excuse me, I need to make lunch.”

Mateo’s hands clench like he wants to grab me again, but I sidestep him, shaking. I only make it two steps when the other side of the camp breaks out in chaos. Straggly red hair swings as Madison pivots, throwing her elbow into Sam’s ribs.

With a roar, he straightens and yanks a long hunting knife from his belt. Madison pushes backwards, but her lean, muscular body is shaking as much as mine, and her injured ankle collapses under her. Sam swipes with the knife, and she flattens herself to the ground to avoid it.

I clutch my throat, taking a useless step forward. I look around for something I can do to help. For a moment, I think I see a flash of motion in the trees behind where Sam and Madison are grappling, but when I blink again, it’s gone.

“Mateo,” Alastair snaps in a low voice, and I whip my head around to look between the two men.

But Mateo hesitates, staring at Alastair, his jaw tight. The pinch of his mouth is unhappy, almost resigned.

“Mateo,” the tattooed man repeats, this time in an almost gentle tone.

Madison curses in the background.

“Mierda,” Mateo swears, unholstering his gun. “Fine, fine.”

He strides over to the mini battlefield just as Sam’s knife catches on Madison’s shoulder, digging out a deep, scarlet gash. Mateo fires into the air, and the crack sends my ears ringing. Sam stumbles back just as Madison drops to the earth, clutching her arm and gasping in pain.

Owen, standing to the side, fingers his gun, watching Mateo over his swollen, bandaged nose.

I really wish Madison would stop trying to get herself killed.

“Come now,” Mateo says lazily. “Enough for today.”

“No,I’vehad enough.” Sam pushes to his feet and glares down at Madison. “Rabid bitches are no use to us. She’s gone too far. We can’t keep her here like this—she keeps fucking getting loose.”

Mateo rolls his head back like he’s exhausted. “Maybe you should tie better knots,cabrón.”

Sam grips the holster of his gun, and I take a few more steps forward, clutching my bag of herbs as if it were any protection at all.

“You only need to hold her a short time longer,” I say, willing everything in my posture, in my soul, to be soft. Compliant.There’s no threat here.This is what he wants, right? Sweet, subservient women. “We are— we are leaving tomorrow, aren’t we?”

“The fuck we are!” Mateo snarls.

Sam stares at me for a long time. Too long. I know Sam isn’t particularly bright, but I wonder if he’s worked out my feeble attempts at manipulation. He’s still gripping his gun, and his eyes are dead and so pale a blue they might as well be chips of ice.

“I’ll keep her with me until we leave. She won’t be any trouble,” I promise, hating the nervous edge to my words. Part of me wishes I had Madison’s blatant confidence. Another part wishes Madison were more like me, and that she’d kept her mouth shut in the first place.

Having Madison with me will be bad. I have onlyjustmanaged to become commonplace, where my movements through the camp are uninteresting and repetitive enough not to attract attention.

Madison attracts attention like a living flame in an eclipse of moths. With her with me, I’m not sure I will have the chance to slip the hemlock into a meal without anyone noticing.

“So obedient.” Sam’s dead eyes track over my skin like maggots looking for a feast. “You must have made a good whore for those corpses.”

Mateo glances at me, shifting, but even as I choke on my revulsion, I keep my posture loose. A quick glance around the camp from under my lashes tells me the other Sinners are watching—some even appear concerned. But too many of those eyes linger on my half-exposed breasts, or Madison’s bare legs as she’s sprawled on the ground. They’re concerned for their merchandise. For whatever they might miss out on when they get us back to the Den.

Sam strolls over to me, seeming to lose interest in Madison, who I see looking around and eyeing the trees. She’s going to try to escape.

Don’t do it,I silently berate her.You can’t run anywhere on that ankle.

She shuffles forward, but as though she hears me, she glances back and sees Sam approaching me.

And she stops shifting toward the trees.

“Did those bastards at the lodge tellyouwhere the women went? Or did they just like to kill them off when they got bored?” He smiles, and there’s a yellowish tinge to his fat teeth. He lowers his voice to a whisper so no one else can hear. “I know I do.”

Sam strokes my cheek, and I hold perfectly still, eyes averted, letting him touch me how he likes.

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