Page 13 of Entangled

Vicious pain cracks into my too-abused ribs, cutting off my cries, and I flop into the earth. Scratchy blades of grass tickle my nose, and fine, chilly dewdrops coat my cheek. The flames suddenly bank, and I suck in sweet, aching lungfuls of air.

For a dizzy moment, I think I see a slim, feminine face staring back at me from between the trees, but when I blink again, she’s gone. She is gone and so is the barn and the flames and the smoke. I may be back in the woods, but it doesn’t matter.

My nightmare is real, waking or asleep.

“Shut the fuck up,” the narrow-faced man snaps. Owen, I remember. His name is Owen.

Despite his vicious kick, his heart doesn’t seem in it, and he returns to his blankets.

As he tucks himself in, my lip curls in low, simmering resentment. I learned to hate this week. It’s as though hearing the death knell for my brutes unshackled some inner demon I’ve always avoided and kept leashed.

These men are the reason my brutes are dead.

Dawn creeps slowly through the trees, sluggish and unhappy. I realize there’s a small pile of food beside me—burned potato and carrots. Did Owen leave these here?

A kick and a carrot. How wonderful.

I don’t think I could eat anything now if my life depended on it.

I don’t get up. My wrists and ankles are tied, and it’s far too much effort. Instead, I savor the new bruise on my side. I’m not numb anymore. Now, I exult in my pain. The hostile, erotic nuances of the syrupy heat in my wrists, the low throb in my ribs, the bright sting of my cuts.

My brutes aredead.

As a budding pain connoisseur, I have to appreciate the notes ofthatparticular vintage. This agony is full-bodied. Rich. Its sharpness sits on the back of my palate, and bitter tannins make my tongue cramp.

This hurt haslegsto it.

I sip it until I’m dizzy and drunk and nauseous. It curdles in my stomach, and still, I force it down my throat until I choke and splutter.

It’s been two days, and reality has sunk in. They’re all dead, and I’m alone. They’re dead, and I am with the hunters I have learned to hate, and if I don’t figuresomethingout, soon my ropes will become a noose.

Because I’ll die before I let them take me back to their Den to be used. A warm corpse for them to stick themselves into.

“Are we speaking today?” a voice drawls beside me. “I really hope you’re a decent conversationalist, because I am bored as fuck and this is starting to feel a little dramatic.”

Irritation pricks me, but I try to ignore her.

Madison, they called her. The redhead who held my hand as I broke. As we were beaten into the earth.

I haven’t spoken to her once, though she’s been by my side the last two days. My silence hasn’t stopped her constant tirade of insults and encouragement and attempts at conversation. But despite my best efforts to keep to myself, I can’t shake that strange, oddly intimate feeling of... kinship.

Andthatis hard to ignore.

I wonder if it is because she’s a woman, or if that’s just the kind of thing that is birthed out of people bleeding together.

I wonder if it’s something like what my brutes felt after they did battle together.

If I’m accessorized with my injuries, Madison is dressed to the nines. One half of her face is swollen and black, her lip is split and free bleeds every time she berates me. She has bold features, and her hair is a sweaty inferno around her head.

“You’re just going to lie there?” she muses flatly. “Again? Do youneedto be this pathetic? It’s embarrassing.”

Maybe it is. But it makes no difference. Being brave hasn’t gotten Madison very far. It just seems to piss the hunters off more.

Then again, maybe thatisa plan. Maybe if I piss them off enough, they’ll kill me before they manage to get me back to their base. Surely death would be better than what they have planned.

And yet, I’m not the woman I was when they chased me through the woods all those weeks ago, ready to end myself with my tiny knife.

These men don’t deserve my life.

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