Page 32 of Entangled

“Fuckingmove, asshole.” Jayk thrusts the barrel into his back, and I realize he’s bleeding from a long, thin slice across his cheekbone. “Show me where she is or you’ll be breathing through new holes in your lungs.”

I examine the new man closer. Anyone who can get a hit on Jayk is trouble.

Big trouble.

“You do realize I have no idea who you’re talking about,” the man says in a confiding, careless tone that pisses me off instantly. He lets Jayk lead him by gunpoint, but he looks more like he’s humoring a bouncer than fearing for his life.

It apparently doesn’t hit Jayk in the warm and fuzzies either. His upper lip curls, and his finger twitches over the trigger.

“Stop, Jayk,” I order, my mind ticking through everything and coming up with only bad news. A low, sick feeling curls in my gut. “Just get him over here.”

“He fuckingcutme with a fuckingsword!” Jayk snaps, the end of his rifle still pressed into the man’s spine.

“Longsword,” the man booms heartily, his voice too damn loud for the quiet forest. He shrugs one shoulder, adjusting the leather harness across his waist. Thesheath. “Could have gone for something smaller, but I like ’em big.”

Jasper presses a long finger between his knitted brows, and bites out in a wintery tone, “Some might say you’re overcompensating.”

The man shoots Jasper a lazy, considering smile over his shoulder. “Want to find out?”

Jasper’s return look is withering, but even though I have a thousand questions about why this man has a goddamnedsword, I’m already dismissing them. The sword is not important.

Only one thing matters now, and she is not in this clearing.

Apparently on the same page, Jayk gestures with his head. “Move. Go.”

The man walks over to the other two and kneels beside them, taking the three of us in. He’s about twice as thick and double the size of the young man next to him.

My heart compresses into a flatline. Three people. Threemen. The small figure was the kid.

Not Eden.

“All of you, hold out your hands,” I say.

They do, and I look at their dirty—but unblemished—hands. They’re not hunters.

The kid glowers sullenly at me.

“Ah,” Jasper says on a hard exhale, catching up.

“What?” Jayk snaps, pacing behind them like he wants to snap their necks. “That’s it? Whereisshe?”

I swallow hard, but I can’t respond. My jaw seems locked tight. Fucking stupid, stupid,stupid. How did this happen?

“We have been following... the wrong tracks, Jaykob,” Jasper says, filling him in quietly. The strain in his voice is palpable—from Jasper, that’s as close to devastation as I’ve ever heard.

Nausea cramps my gut as reality sinks in.The wrong tracks. We don’t have her. How long have we been on the wrong trail? Hot bile creeps up my throat.

Jaykob stops. “No.”

Jasper and I don’t respond.

“Fuckingno!” he yells, but his voice cracks on the word. Jayk throws his gun violently and it cracks against a tree.

His shout shreds me. It’s hollow, echoing with the same devastated, hopeless pain that’s crippling me.

Jayk turns, gripping his head, his chest heaving and eyes vacant with panic.

We’ve lost her. Sweet, surprising Eden.

---