Page 76 of Entangled

I rub my forehead as the throbbing starts back up.

Every gaunt face from the cavern flickers through my mind. Every civilian’s back as they walked out of Bristlebrook. The white, limp face of the tiny eight-year-old boy who caught a bullet on my watch.

I’m not the right man for this job. Every civilian incursion to Bristlebrook has been a disaster. How am I meant to keep all of these people safe?

But I can’t turn them away.

I sigh. “Then I guess we’re all going back to Bristlebrook.”

Chapter21

Eden

Survival tip #26

Take what you can get.

Greed will be the end of you.

Idrop my pack with a heavy sigh. We packed up for Bristlebrook early this morning, and the sun had long since crept away before Dom and Heather called a halt to our travel.

We’ve made it a good distance. It probably shouldn’t have surprised me how quickly these people were able to gather their belongings and move as a group, but it did. Like me, they’re better at running than they are at fighting.

Darkness gathers in my chest again at the thought—a niggling bleakness I can’t quite shake, no matter how I try.

In my head, I back away from Madison, myfriend, over and over. I watch myself in the camp again and again, doing anything to survive, all the time, at any cost. Sacrificing anyone. Killing anyone. But how I got here shouldn’t matter, as long as I lived.

Ishouldbe happy. It worked. My brutes are alive, I’m free, surviving again, and I’m surrounded by a crowd of friendly faces.

So why did the night still come for me?

I try to blink past my tiredness. I didn’t sleep much at all, staring at the nightmarish phantasms on the rock wall until they became my entire reality. My Plato’s cave, where every unnamed doubt and fear and feeling was cast up like a specter before my eyes.

My pallet was set up by a low fire, close to Jaykob and Jasper and Dom. I thought about sneaking in beside Jaykob—just in the hopes that he might be able to make the shadows retreat again—but he was out in moments, snoring loudly enough to raise the dead, and I didn’t want to disturb him. Jasper, of course, was out of the question. I don’t even want to imagine what he might do if I had the audacity to try tocuddlehim. And Dom... well, Dom was up having a low, serious conversation with Heather for half the night.

So I just lay there, wondering why there was still this impossible pressure on my chest.

I smile gratefully as Jennifer, a brunette with tattoos and a septum piercing, hands me some jerky and some sort of fried potato. They set up their camp for the night just as efficiently as they’d packed up, and low fires burn through the trees like tiny beacons in the dim light as dinner is cooked.

I make quick work of the food as I walk the camp, looking for my men. There are ninety-two of us in all, Dom said, and it makes for a generous sprawl through the trees.

I pass Akira, who’s finally calmed down enough to sit quietly before a fire. She was given the choice to stay or go, Jasper told me, and she chose to stay. I suppose she doesn’t have anywhere to go.

There are people patrolling around the camp, standing watch, and it helps relax some of my tension. I know it’s unlikely that the small number of Sinners would come back for us, but I can’t stop looking over my shoulder.

Toward the edges of the camp, I spot Alastair and Mateo. They’re tied to a tree beside one another, and the similarities between their positions and how Heather and I were trussed in their camp can’t be a coincidence.

They’re both covered in blood.

The pressure on my chest increases, and I slowly make my way over. Alastair’s head is tilted back against the tree trunk, and he’s breathing shallowly. His bandages still haven’t been changed, and Mateo seems to be unconscious.

I hesitate in front of them, my bag of herbs feeling heavy at my side.

I don’t know why I have this urge to tend to them, except that I remember very distinctly how it felt to be in their position, and they did help me when I was at my most vulnerable.

But Heather is also right. They killed Thomas, captured people, went on raids with the Sinners... and they attacked Bristlebrook. If my instincts are right, I’d guess that Alastair was more heavily involved in the planning than he let on. Sam has the drive, certainly, and the weapons and the men. But after spending several days with him, I’m not quite confident that he has the brains to mastermind that bait and switch.

And Alastair has already revealed his scheming mind.

---