Page 237 of Entangled

“Okay,” she says, whispering her promise. “I won’t forget.”

So diligent.

My lips twitch, and I match her tone. “I trust you.”

For some reason, she flinches at that, and she rests her cheek against my chest. The soft weight is like a lingering kiss.

We’re outside her door now, but I’m not ready for this to end. I don’t want to hand her over to Beau yet.

I lower her legs to the floor, then let her lean her back against the wall beside her door. Her hands are buried in my shirt, and I keep mine around her waist to hold her up. She’s lost the few extra pounds she gained while she was with us before. Her captivity and the strict rations are starting to show on her, and I hate it, just because I know what it means. She’s hungry. We’re not getting her enough food.

No one is getting enough food—and unless we change something soon, we’re starting a slow, inexorable starvation game.

Her face mirrors the dark turn my thoughts have taken.

“What is it, pet?”

She stares at my chest, mouth tight and flat. She looks ready for the gallows.

It takes her a long time before she whispers, and it’s so low I have to strain to hear her.

“Do you think if someone did something really, truly wrong, but their intentions were good, that you might be able to forgive them for it?” She swallows, then pushes her hair back off her face and into the messy tangle behind her ears. Her teeth bite deeply into her lower lip, then she releases it to add, “Especially if they were so, so sorry.”

A chill slithers through my chest. Is she talking about something that happened in the camp? She has to know I don’t judge her for the poison.

“Eden, we’ve all done things we’re not proud of. All we can do is own our shit and do better moving forward. You don’t need to be sorry for anything you did out there,” I tell her.

Eden still doesn’t meet my eyes, and her fingers tighten in my shirt. All I can see is the dark waterfall of her hair as she finally nods.

“Dom, I need to tell you something.” She takes a deep breath. “When we were all coming back from the camp, I?—”

Her bedroom door swings open, cutting her off, and we both look up to see Beau stagger out, wide-eyed and pale.

His hands are covered in blood.

Chapter52

Beau

Survival tip #37

If an infection risks the whole system,

then make the hard call.

Amputate.

The room is scarlet and rust. Blood splatters the walls like paint—heavy and slowly dripping in some places, and light and drying in others. It’s smeared on the windows, and it scars the curtains. The bed is gorged with it, dripping on the floor, and the large, heavy mound of blankets in its center makes my brain go blank with fear.

This amount of blood means death.

“Eden!” My voice is sharp with panic. I’m at our bedside in seconds. The bed I woke up in this morning, with my Eden wrapped in my arms.

My hands shake as they hover over the blankets, my vision narrowing on the gentle protrusion underneath.

It can’t be her. She was at the party. She was with Jasper and Lucky—they had her.

It can’t, it can’t, it can’t.

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