I’m surrounded by the guys I’ve spent more than four years dreaming of saving, all of us tucked into this cramped space little more than an arm’s reach away. The awareness of their presence sends a giddy shiver over my skin even as I grapple with my confusion.
When I try to speak, my throat throbs. I swallow and cough and swallow again, and then manage to say hoarsely, “Why would I want to run? I—I came foryou. Of course I figured we’d stick together. That’s how it was always supposed to—”
Jacob steps toward me as if he’s considering strangling me after all. “Shutup.”
How can he be the same guy who once grinned so fiercely at me as we planned our winning tactics for a game of capture the flag? Who’d watch me spar with eyes alight with appreciation and call me “Wildcat” when he applauded a win?
Have the guardians done something I can’t even comprehend to the boys who were once mine?
My bewilderment brings heat to the back of my eyes, but I clench my jaw against it. Breaking down in tears isn’t going to help anything.
I need to stay calm and focused, and we’ll get through this.
We have to get through it.
The guys have simply been watching my reactions. Andreas rakes his fingers back through his tight curls. His copper-brown skin has grayed, and I don’t think it’s just because of the dimness beneath the tarp.
“We know, Riva,” he says. “Did you think they wouldn’t tell us? That we’d just assume you were dead or something?”
I honestly had no idea what the guys would know about my whereabouts, but no matter what they believed, I expected them to be just as happy to see me as I was to get back to them.
I peer up at him, meeting the dark gray eyes that always used to shine with amusement or friendly warmth. “I don’t know what you mean. The guardians took me away after— I guess they figured we were less likely to attempt another escape if we were apart.”
It was a mistake to include a female.
Jacob lets out a scoff so ragged it’s almost a snarl.
Dominic eases closer, hunched beneath the tarp even though he’s the shortest of the guys, the plastic a few inches above his head. His dark hair hangs loose from its usual ponytail, but his pale greenish-hazel gaze is as pensive as it always was.
“There’s no point in lying,” he says in the same softly measured voice as before, bobbing a little with the vibration of the truck. “We heard about the deal—and everything.”
My hands ball at my sides, but I will my frustration down. “It sounds like theguardianswere lying. What deal? What ‘everything’? I just broke you out of that torture building—”
Jacob snorts and can’t seem to restrain his caustic remarks any longer. “You? When we found you, you were manning the control room, probably trying to figure out how to put the building in lockdown so we’d never make it out.”
“Why would I be— I went in there to let you out, because I had no idea you’d already managed it.”
“You had the door barricaded,” Zian puts in, his words coming out in a low growl. “It seemed like you were trying to save yourself.”
“Yeah, from the guardians.” I gesture vaguely. “I’d already taken down one just getting into the building. I didn’t know how many more were still inside who’d interfere.”
Andreas cocks his head. “I don’t remember seeing any bodies lying around when we left.”
“I shoved her into a storage room so the body wouldn’t tip off anyone else!”
“So there’s also no proving it now—very convenient,” Jacob sneers.
Why are they finding this so hard to understand?
I just barely keep my voice steady, my throat getting ever tighter with an ache that digs way deeper than any of the pain Jacob inflicted with his physical attack. “Why do you think the guardians went rushing out of the facility in the first place? How do you think you got your opening to break out of your cells? Why the hell would I have been doinganythingother than trying to help you?”
Have you all gone fuckinginsane?I restrain myself from adding.
What did the guardians do to them? How have they warped the guys I loved so horribly that they don’t evenknowme, not properly, anymore?
Jacob glowers at me, his expression so stark with loathing it cuts me right to the core. “I don’t know what enemies those assholes have made who might have decided to mess with them. Idoknow that you bargained with the pricks for better treatment, gave up mybrother as a fucking blood sacrifice, and then waltzed off to enjoy your cushy new privileges someplace you never had to see us again.”
I’m shaking my head before I’m even consciously aware of the movement. Is that what they really think?