Page 79 of Entangled

But I’m caught up now. “I didn’t want to be this person, Dom. Ineverdid. They forced this on me.”

“You feel guilty,” Dom says in an even tone.

“I don’t,” I snap, hating how that word digs into me. Hating how it brings back Madison’s face as I backed away from her. “I did what I had to do. That’s what you told me back at the river, isn’t it? There was a problem, and I solved it because Ihadto.”

I gesture back at Alastair and Mateo, though they’re out of sight now. “Thosemen, though? They don’t need to die. And if they were giving you answers freely, they didn’t need to be hurt and abused. They may have done terrible things, but surely we’re better than that. Why aren’t we allowed to be better? Why do we have to let them make us ugly? Why can’t we be smart and not justbrutes?”

I try to imagine Dom bent over the injured, bound prisoners, beating them like I was beaten, Mateo’s eyes wide and panicked over his gag as Alastair took yet more damage he can’t afford, and the image makes me queasy.

How many awful things are these people dragging out of us?

Dom seems caught along a similar train of thought. “You think I’m like them? Are we another cage to you, Eden?”

I take a deep breath, but it does nothing to dislodge the sick feeling in my stomach. “You’re not the Sinners, Dom. Even with your ridiculous deal, I felt safe every moment I was at Bristlebrook. Butthis? This is ugly. I think it’s far too easy to slip into being a villain when there are no rules—when lives are on the line. I don’t want to lose the last few good pieces of myself to this world. I’ve already lost too many.”

The woods around us are too quiet.

Dom is, too.

I run a hand over the goosebumps on my arms. “I don’t know if they deserve to live, but I think everyone’s being far too quick to decide they should die. They’re not athreatright now. They’re cooperating, and I really do believe they want some of the same things we do. If we don’t jump straight to torture and murder, maybe wecanget them to switch sides.”

Dom pauses, looking into the trees, but his eyes don’t seem to be tracking anything. It almost feels like he’s holding his breath.

Then he swallows and looks down at me.

“I’ll think about it.” When I tense, his eyes bore into mine as he says, “I will. I promise. I am listening, Eden.”

He means it.

“I just...” Dom sighs, his chest pressing against his tight shirt. “I don’t know that we have the luxury of moral righteousness. There are too many innocent people at risk.”

He sighs and rubs a hand over his hair. Finally peering past my own chaotic feelings, I look at him.Reallylook. Dom looks exhausted... and worried. He just met them, and he’s already invested in these people. In his own domineering way, he cares a lot.

Golden eyes flick to my face. “Just for the record, I wasn’t on board with the beating they took. Heather had some things to work through—I pulled her off them before it got out of hand.”

Heather.

Heather, not Dom.

Strangely, the image of her attacking Alastair doesn’t bring the same sick feeling in my gut. She certainly has more cause. I remember her talking about Tommy, and about the freckle he had under his left eye that she used to kiss every morning.

I remember that stormy, endless hate I felt when I thought my men were dead.

It wasn’t Dom performing a cold-blooded interrogation. It was a broken woman taking her pound of flesh.

I can’t judge her for it—but we still need them.

“Alastair took a lot from her,” I say finally, my unease subsiding a little.

I lean against a tree, and the scratch of the bark is strangely grounding.

“Thomas was a good man,” Dom says heavily. “And Heat has always been fiery.”

And that quickly, that ember sparks again in my own blood. Suddenly, rudely, I remember Dom and Beau talking about her in the woods—“fantastic in the sack,” Beau said.

“Oh, I’m sureHeatruns scorching hot,” I mutter.

What a stupid name.

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