Page 100 of Entangled

I believe him. He’ll do everything he can to get Alastair to Cyanide City alive.

As they depart, I do too, hurrying through the shadows. Me again, sneaking about in the night. Lying. Killing. Betraying.

I don’t know when I started becoming this person, but I don’t think I like her.

I don’t think I like her at all.

Chapter25

Eden

Survival tip #188

The darkest place in the world is your own head.

Don’t lose yourself to it.

The campfire crackles and burns before my eyes. I’ve been staring at it for so long, I’m starting to see shapes between the embers.

“They’re going to come for Bristlebrook, Dom, I’m telling you.Hewill tell Sam, and there’s no way Sam will leave this many of us be. How many fortifications are we going to need to keep hundreds of men out?” Heather argues across the fire in a low voice.

Dom rubs his palm into his forehead. He’s exhausted, I can see it from here.

“He knows, too.” Dom sighs. “He was in that cave when we were talking. He knows we’re planning to move the cameras, to fortify, all of it. He heard. They’ll plan for it. He’s a fucking SEAL—he’ll know how to counter most of what we can set up.”

Sick, sludgy guilt clogs my veins at the worry scoring his tone, and I breathe out slowly. I didn’t... think of that.

If I’m wrong, I might have killed us all.

I think of how crushed Dom would be if he discovered my lie. He listened to me. He tried to help.

God, even if I’m right, I’m wrong. So, so wrong.

Heather’s breath is shaky too. “We should find a base somewhere else—farmland, maybe? Drones don’t seem to be a problem anymore.”

Dom throws another log onto the fire. “Head out to farmland and we’re going to run right into Reaper territory. Jayk nearly lost a foot when we stole the pigs.” He shakes his head. “Everywhere worth having is already claimed, Heat. Throw yourself on their mercy if you want—you might have better luck than we did.” He shrugs. “Or they could be just like Sam.”

“Reapers?” Heather sighs, then lowers her voice further until I almost can’t hear. “Dom, how fucked are we here?”

Dom pauses. “We’ll fortify. Move the cameras. We’ll make it work.”

“Yeah, and when they descend on us with more than three hundred men?” She curses. “They should never have gotten free. Sam wouldn’t have the balls or the brains to come after us again without Alastair making his plans for him. He’s smart, Dom.”

“They should never have been held that long.” Dom’s voice is hard. “They had time to think of an escape plan.”

My eyes flick over to him, startled, and through the fire our eyes catch. It finally starts to feel warm, just for a moment.

He really did argue for me.

“Don’t even start with me...”

As Heather starts bickering, Dom’s attention is drawn back into their conversation, and I refocus on the flames. The two of them haven’t stopped arguing since they found Alastair and Mateo missing. Dom was livid. Heather, devastated. Thenfurious. She came down like the thunder of heaven on their tracks, only to lose them in the cave networks. They were clever in their escape, and if Heather had had the capacity to bring down the entire mountain on their heads, I know she would have lit the fuse.

Since then, she’s been edgy and short, and I sense a kind of bleak desperation in her, one that calls out to my own. Sheneededthat hate. As much as I believe Alastair needed to be freed, I know I just stole her crutch out from under her... and now she’s limping.

Dom seems to have decided that they managed their own escape, but I heard Heather go so far as to accusehimof letting them loose—though I have no clue where she’d get that idea from.

Neither of them accused me, though. It’s as though it didn’t even occur to them.

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