My body convulsed as I lurched forward, needing to empty the contents of my stomach but dry heaving because there was nothing there.
Caspian held his hand out to help me up. “As much as I love chasing you, Little Troublemaker, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
I stared down at the blood that now covered us both, and my hand trembled in his.
“It will wash off.” He gave me a tug. “We have to go. Someone will figure this out soon, and we need to be long gone when that happens.”
I nodded. The words got trapped in my throat. I kept staring at the blood.
It wouldn’t wash off. We might get rid of the evidence with soap and water, but the blood would always be there.
We ran through brush and jumped over fallen branches. My ankle was on fire, but I wouldn’t slow down. I couldn’t. Caspian was here, and I wasn’t risking us both getting caught.
By the time we made it to a clearing, my vision was blurred with tears, and my foot hurt so badly it was numb.
Two more hooded figures pulled up in a bigger boat, this one more like a fishing vessel with a motor.
“Fuck. You’re hurt,” Caspian said as he lifted me onto the boat.
I shook my head. My stomach was knotted into a ball of emotions. “We can’t leave them.” My breath was shallow as it fought to escape my lungs.
There were three more girls in there, three lives just as important as mine, three other people worth saving.
He pulled me onto his lap. “We can’t go back.”
I struggled to break free. “Wehaveto go back.” My focus turned to the guy at the wheel as the engine revved. “Stop! We can’t leave them.” Tears streamed down my face because I knew what waited for those girls, what would’ve been waiting for me.
Caspian nodded toward my foot. My ankle was bruised and swollen from the angry bone. He ran a finger over it, and I hissed.
“There’s no way you can outrun them if they catch us, and I’m not leaving you on this fucking boat alone.” He jabbed a finger toward the woods that were getting farther and farther away. “Going back in there is glorified suicide.” He glanced at the other two hooded figures in the boat. “For all of us.” His eyes found mine again. There was the same firm determination in them I’d seen the night he’d told the world I was going to be his bride. “I’d risk a hundred lives—including my own—to save yours. But this, going back there, would all be for nothing because they would find you, Tatum. They would take you. And they would make sure I wasn’t around to save you next time.”
No.I couldn’t lose him.
But I couldn’t bear the thought of those other girls being caught.
“They’ll catch them.” My voice trembled.
Caspian held my gaze as he took my face in his hands. “They will.” His eyes softened. “And we’ll do everything we can to find them and set them free.”
Was that even a possibility? Did he have that much power?
How long would it take? What would those women have to go through until they were found?
I closed my eyes and nodded because I knew he was right. And I believed him when he said he would try to help them. “Okay.” It wasn’t like he’d given me a choice anyway, unless I wanted to jump into the water and swim back to shore.
Once we were a good distance away from the forest, the other two figures tugged their hoods down.
My head snapped up. “Lincoln?” I looked between him and Caspian. “You two were in this together?”
He tipped his head back and smiled. “Somebody had to make sure he didn’t fuck it up.”
Chandler took his focus off driving the boat long enough to glance back at me. “Yeah. That’s what I’m here for.” He smirked.
“How did you know where to find me? How did you—"
Caspian grinned and brushed a hair away from my forehead. “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, I’m getting us the fuck out of here. I have it all set up. There’s a plane waiting on the runway. We’re going to be okay.” He pulled his hood off and cradled me against his chest. “There was no other way.”
He was talking about Khalid.