“Why?” I crane my neck so I can see into her eyes, but we’re outside the circle of her lantern, and her face is cast in shadow.
“Because you helped Elijah.”
She presses the opening against my lips and tips the bottle, sending cool, clean water past my tongue. My throat is so dry and hot that my attention shifts immediately to taking as much of the water as I can get, swallowing past the constriction in my throat, forcing it past my dry tongue, my lips sticky with the tape residue.
But it’s not long before my need for answers overrides the desire to drink the bottle dry. Breathing fast, I turn my head away and water spills down my front.
“Who is Elijah?”
A flash of lightning brightens the space for an instant, giving me a fleeting glance at her vacant eyes and thin face.
“You helped him.” She frowns. “They will punish you.”
My head pounds. None of this is making any sense. “Do you work here? Do you work for them?”
Thunder rumbles in the distance. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
I shake my head because she’s not making any sense, but the motion just makes my temples throb. “Let me go and we can get away together. You’re going to have a baby. Is one of those monsters the father?”
She presses her lips together, like I’ve triggered some kind of emotion.
“We can leave right now,” I stammer. “Please.Please.” My voice has turned high and thin. “Let me go, and I’ll get you both out of here safely.”
She slaps my tape shut and slips out of the cell, locking the door behind her, then my hands are released. I shout at her to come back, but she climbs the stairs and shuts the door behind her.
I close my eyes but my head swims. I don’t know what to make of her visit. Is she helping me, or prepping me for the horrors that will begin the moment the men return? Who is Elijah?They will punish you.
I grit my teeth. The answers I crave are irrelevant to me in the short term.
I renew my determination to get at my pocket.
Gritting my teeth, I rock to my knees, then breathe in shallow gulps through the pain. My eyes water and the nausea returns.Keep trying.But no matter how hard I arch and twist and contort my frame, I can’t get my bound hands into the pocket. It’s only when I fall on my back that something in my pocket shifts. Frantic, I roll backwards, elevating my hips enough that my knife slips out and clatters to the floor.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Frantic,I toss down the remnants of Linnea’s backpack. “I thought it was a bear!” I shout over the pounding rain, my voice too tight in my throat. “Someone cut this fabric.”
“And they left this here so we’d think she got attacked,” Rowdy replies, shaking his head. “To throw us off.”
Bruneau whines softly as I scan past the scattered items to the woods. A flash of lightning brightens the eerie forest for a split second, but it doesn’t reveal any more clues.
I get to my feet. “Someone took her.” Thunder rumbles from the south.
Rowdy’s face tenses. “We need to alert law enforcement.”
“No. That’ll take too long. If it’s Sons of Eden, we need to go there.” Doesn’t he understand there’s no other option? “Now.”
His eyes flash at my sharp tone. “And get us both killed?”
“If those bastards have her, you know what they’re capable of.”
He grips his waist. “What if it’snotthem?”
“Fuck!” He could be right, but the quickest way to find out is togo.
“The first few hours of a search are the most important. We needhelp. We need a team, resources. And if it is Sons of Eden, we’ll need an army.”
I shake my head. “Not if we have the element of surprise.”