Ensnared (Brutes of Bristlebrook, #1)
Rebecca Quinn
Chapter 1
Eden
SURVIVAL TIP #51
Carrots aren’t worth your life.
B ranches whip my cheeks as I run, slicing through dirt-caked tears. My lungs burn with each labored breath.
Can’t stop. Don’t stop.
My bare feet slap the earth—I abandoned my flimsy shoes hours ago when the strap gave out. I’ve barely stopped to eat, and I certainly haven’t slept. I push my glasses back up the bridge of my nose and risk a glance over my shoulder as I dart through the trees, but I can’t see them. The shrub is too thick, and they’re far more used to hunting than I am to running.
“Almost got you, slut!”
The shout echoes through the forest, and I can’t tell how close they are. I’d thought I had a good fifteen minutes on them, maybe more.
But it sounds like it’s a lot less.
Panic claws at me, and I push faster through the undergrowth.
For four years, I avoided attention. With my lonely cave and my little vegetable garden, I was getting by.
But then I heard voices.
How heady, how purely intoxicating to hear people after so long. I couldn’t stop myself from creeping out for a look. Just a look, I’m not an idiot. I thought I was subtle. Sneaky. But, clearly, I did something to draw their attention.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I am an idiot.
When I came back after checking my traps, I found my garden uprooted, my meager belongings raided and scattered . . . and two men waited by the mouth of my cave, tearing into my carefully grown carrots. It shouldn’t have hurt, not so much. It was just a place, after all. They never mean anything. But I was so startled—so furious—that I just stood there, staring.
And they saw me.
One glance at the hunger in their rough faces, the predatory glints in their eyes, was enough to convince me that these were not men I wanted to be better acquainted with.
So I ran, and they chased.
More men quickly joined the first two. They’re part of a large group, the kind I always avoid because they’re drone bait.
For the first time since the Final War began, I’ve actually prayed to see one of those deadly machines carving the sky, to watch it drop another devastating explosion on the mass of heat signatures behind me.
But I haven’t seen a drone for years, and I can’t expect a miracle.
So I keep running.
“Come on, baby, this is getting boooring!”
That one sounds closer. Is he closer?
I scramble over a fallen tree, grazing my palms and knees on the bark. Have to keep moving.
Two nights ago, I thought I’d escaped them. I laid two false trails and hid up a tree, trembling as the twenty or so heavily armed men stalked beneath me. It took all my courage to climb down after they left and find a new hiding place. I cried in relief that night. I started making plans for a new cave and fretted over the veggie seeds I’d left behind in my flight.
But they found me, curled under my silly bush that suddenly seemed like no protection at all when their leader—Sam— dragged me from it. He stank like filthy thoughts and sour sweat, but he was so distracted calling for the others that his grip slipped, and I bolted. I escaped.
You haven’t escaped yet, I remind myself, fighting down the sick fear that claws at my belly. My arm is bloody and hot and sore where a bullet grazed me; I’ve seen worse, but it needs attention.
Howls and catcalls chase me. My glasses bounce off my nose, and the attached chain around my neck threatens to strangle me as I duck under a branch. It’s another miracle altogether that I haven’t lost them in my flight.
Running water sloshes and babbles somewhere close. Making a quick decision, I round a tree and dart off the path I’ve been following. I need water. Desperately. I’ve been sweating and bleeding and running, and I’ve only had what I could quickly scoop in my palms from the tiny brooks that crossed my path.
My body is flagging.
I glance back again, and the motion costs me. A sharp rock pierces the sole of my foot, and I cry out, stumbling.
Darn it all!
I stop, clutching at my foot. I shove my glasses back on only to see the offending stone topple innocently beside me, its dagger point dropping to the side. Blood wells, and an aching bruise starts swelling the sensitive flesh.
A twig cracks.
My head whips around, and I study the green depths around me. A bird? A hunter?
No no no.
They can’t be that close.
Biting my lip, I rip a strip of cloth from the bottom of my filthy blouse and wrap it hastily around my foot. Panting through clenched teeth, I hobble as fast as I can toward the sound of water and try to stop panicked thoughts from taking me over. No matter how I push them down, though, my stabbing steps reveal a basic truth: this is bad. I need to run. It’s the only thing keeping me free.
The sight of the sparkling river makes my pain ebb for a moment, and I stumble between the trees.
Only to stop.
My stomach drops to my feet.
Three tall, muscular—and very heavily armed—men watch me from the riverbed. One of them, with half his dark-blond hair tied in a topknot, slings back his rifle. The colorful carnival scenes tattooed down his defined arms catch the dappled light, and he grins under his short beard.
“Well hello, sweetheart.”