Page 34 of Entangled

Whoever needs them will have to find them elsewhere.

“There are clinics,” I say, as if he wouldn’t have thought of this already. “Hospitals. I’m sure there are inhalers left somewhere.”

The older man, Arthur, scoffs. “How much time have you spent around Cyanide City?”

Cyanide is the largest city around, and it became a war zone after the initial strikes left it half in ruins. Groups of all sizes fought it out for dominance, angling for the best resources, the best bases. Now, the signs on the roads into the city are all spray painted the same way—Cyanide is suicide: Stay out.

“None,” I tell him.

After raiding the Ranger base, we mostly kept to the smaller towns and farms to the east of Bristlebrook for extra supplies. They’re less resourced, but at least we were less likely to get our asses handed to us by a feral mob. Sometimes the path of least resistance is best.

“The Sinners own the hospital, and they cleared out every pharmacy, clinic, and high school nurse’s station in twenty miles.” Arthur’s ruddy cheeks take on an alarming shade of red. “And they’re not sharing.”

“Whatever.” Jayk leans in, rubbing one fist like he’s getting ready to use it. “What about?—”

“The Sinners?” Jasper interrupts and doesn’t acknowledge the murderous glare he gets from Jayk. His head tilts, eyes assessing. “They wouldn’t happen to have coiled snake tattoos on their right hands, by chance?”

“That’s them.” Stephen spits.

Our hunters call themselves the Sinners.

Great.

Still, having an actual, tangible lead, a destination, eases some of my choking fear.

“The hospital? That’s their base?” Jayk asks, and desperate hope scores his voice. At their nod, he nods too, a hard flex to his jaw. “Looks like we’re tearing up a hospital.”

“Actually...” Bentley starts, sizing me up. He looks like a wily bear sizing up a wolf pack. “She might be closer than that.”

“Bent,” Arthur warns.

“What do you mean?” I ask, and I can’t keep the harshness out of my voice. I’m being manipulated. I can feel it, and I can’t stop it.

But I fuckinghateit.

“So, ’bout fifty of them left Cyanide weeks ago, all geared up, and we’ve been on their trail for weeks, trying to find what they were up to. They set up a camp for a while, then split off in a bunch of different directions. And one of their men had an inhaler.” He looks at me, as though sensing my impatience, and tilts his head meaningfully. “You keeping up? There’s a theme here.”

My finger touches the trigger deliberately, and Bentley snorts, catching the move. He rolls his heavy shoulders lazily anyway, like he’s settling in for story time. “We followed the four of them around while they messed with a bunch of cameras, hoping they’d get sloppy and we’d get a shot at taking the meds, but they were armed up.” His gaze drops to my rifle. “We didn’t have the equipment to take them on.”

Jayk gives me a furious, edgy look over the man’s shoulder that I try to ignore. I need answers before I start firing on him for wasting our time.

“Longswords not the best for ambush attacks?” Jasper asks with biting sarcasm.

Bentley’s laugh sounds like a crash of thunder. “Got him good enough.”

He nods at Jayk.

Before Jayk can charge at him, I snap, “We getting around to a point here?”

Arthur breaks in quickly. “They ended up going back and setting up a camp, and we kept watch. A bit over a week ago, some of the men from the larger group started returning, all dirty, injured—in a bad way. But they started keeping a better watch, so we decided to keep our distance. We’ve been debating whether we should head back to Red Zone, our base in Cyanide, but we can’t... the medicine is so close...”

I scrutinize him, but his desperation feels genuine. “What makes you think Eden would be there?”

“They have women, at least two in the camp. The Sinners talk big about a new world—building a community, so theycollectwomen and families and take them back to the hospital,” Arthur’s voice is thick with distaste, “whether they want to be collected or not. It’s not a community. It’s a prison.”

This camp must be their meet-up location for if things went south after Bristlebrook. Given we know the hunters—theSinners—took Eden, it’s likely that’s where they were taking her. If she’s not there already.

Or if they haven’t broken up that camp already to head back into Cyanide.

---