Page 272 of Entangled

But what he said catches up to me. Ididn’trun. Heather is okay because of me. I did something. I didn’t just save myself.

“You could have died,” Dom snaps, and I choke on a laugh.

The thought doesn’t scare me as much as it did even a few weeks ago. It’s not just myself anymore. The same things I want to live for... I think I’m willing to die for them, too.

My laugh becomes more genuine, and I lift up on my toes and give him a quick, exhilarated kiss. His breath catches as I settle back on my feet, and he stares at me as I put my glasses back on. Not that it does much in this lighting. I feel drugged, my brain swimming with thoughts and feelings, and my pulse still batters at my throat.

Dom’s radio bursts to life, and my heart lifts. It’s Beau or Lucky. If their radio is working and intact, they must be too.

But then I hear the voice.

“Hello, Captain.” Whisper soft and deathly dangerous, I’d recognize that voice anywhere. It carves through my nightmares every night.

Alastair.

My victorious joy withers into ash, and the manhole above the ladder makes a yawning scream as it opens. Light shines down from it in a tricksome halo. Dom pulls me behind him, but no-one moves down the ladder. Of course, they wouldn’t. It would be far too exposed.

“Come up now, Ranger. You know how this goes. We have your people hostage,” Alastair’s voice slides over the radio again.

Whyisit Alastair? Why not Sam?

Dom lifts his radio up to his mouth. “How do we know they’re still alive?”

His voice is even, but he’s like stone beside me. Still alive? Horror thrills through me. It hadn’t occurred to me that the radio might have been stolen from a body.

There’s a loud crack and a grunt, and I hear Mateo snap, “Speak. Tell your friends you’re alive.”

There’s no response for a moment, but then there’s another fleshy thud, and a man yells. “We’re alive! Why aren’t yousayinganything?”

I can hear him shout through the manhole as well as the radio in a discordant echo.

“This is not a negotiation. Come up, or I’ll kill one of them for every minute you don’t comply,” Alastair says, and the line clicks off.

Heather grabs Dom’s arm, and they immediately start arguing in low, rapid voices.

Alastair and Mateo have my men. I set Alastair and Mateo free, and they arethreateningmy men. Whatever storm had started to ebb in me rumbles with dark, furious thunder.

Moving as fast as I can, I dart for the ladder and begin climbing up.

“Eden? No, Eden,stop!”

The panic in Dom’s voice rips at me, but I tune it out.

And crawl out into the bright, treacherous light.

Chapter63

Eden

Survival tip #247

The truth will out.

Iclimb out into a large courtyard swarming with men. They stand on lunch tables and guard the entrances, and the overhanging stone balconies are lined with armed men. Fluorescent lights beat down at us from the four corners of the courtyard, dazzling me after so long in the dark.

Jasper, Lucky, Beau, Bentley, and the rest of our people are kneeling in a cluster, and there are at least two dozen guns trained on them. Jasper and Lucky are coated in pale dust, and Beau is bleeding from a swollen, split cut over his right cheekbone. Mateo hovers over him, his angel face still and cold.

I look between them, the storm in me so icy cold that I feel my lips turn numb. I didn’t save the man he loves only for him to take mine. Guilt and horror and rage twist and wreck my insides.

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