I’m thinking about parachuters so that has to be a positive sign.
In fact, after a moment of lying in shock, I feel very much alive and very much like I hurt everywhere. Very much like I can’t pull enough air into my aching lungs. I can’t open my eyes—something wet and sticky is coating my face. Sounds have gone quiet around me, and I wonder if that’s real this time or if I’ve been deafened again. But there’s no ringing in my ears.
It’s just quiet.
I want to lie here and feel sorry for myself. To catalog each and every injury and assess how bad it might be before moving, but that would be stupid. Because someone has to have survived, and if it isn’t my guys . . .
Shakily, I wipe at the blinding liquid over my eyes—I don’t know where my glasses have gone—and then stare at my fingers. Thick, garish red coats them. Even a little blurred, I can see that much. Breathing through my nose, I force myself to wipe the rest away and then pull myself up.
The man is under me.
Scrambling back, I can’t help the screech that leaves me then. My knife sticks out of his back, buried to the hilt, and his neck is bent at an unusual angle. My mind jars on the image. I only just stop the inane urge to shake him awake.
Injuries not conducive to life. Isn’t that what they say?
Nausea rises, and I only just turn to the side in time to empty my stomach noisily. Bile, hot and acidic, scorches my mouth and burns my nose. But even when I squeeze my eyes shut, his body is imprinted in my mind.
When I’m finally done, I take deep, gulping breaths, and my gaze darts around the clearing, searching for any movement.
Someone has to have heard that. The scream, if not the vomiting afterwards. I need a weapon, and I need to leave. Now.
I look around for anything else. I spot the gun that he dropped at the base of the tree but, reluctantly, I decide against it. It looks broken, and even if it wasn’t, I have no idea how to use a gun. Even if I did, I doubt my vision is good enough to hit anything reliably without my glasses.
Crawling forward, I eye the knife, trying not to look at what’s beneath it. I also try not to smell the urine and feces he secreted when his bowels released. Grasping the hilt, I grimace at the sticky feel to it. When I tug, it doesn’t come easily, and my wince deepens.
“Come on, come on,” I beg under my breath.
Bracing myself, I yank it hard, and I have only a brief moment of victory when it comes free, as a hand clamps over my mouth, and I’m wrenched away from behind.
Chapter 28
Eden
SURVIVAL TIP #109
Break when you need to.
Preferably in the arms of a gorgeous man.
I scream. I try to bite the hand, twisting as hard as I can and kicking back to try and free myself. If I can stab him, if I can just get the knife around, then I can stop him. I’ve done it once now—what’s one more life on my hands? I fight wildly, violently, but the grip doesn’t loosen, doesn’t do more than dislodge tears from my panicked eyes.
“Enough, fuck, darlin’， stop fighting me. Easy now.”
I fall still, heart hammering in my chest.
“That’s it, you can drop the knife now. There’s a good girl.”
A shudder goes right through my body, down to my toes. The weapon drops from my numb fingers.
“That’s good. If I let go of your mouth, can you promise me you won’t scream? Stay nice and quiet for me.”
Beau’s slow, soothing words by my ear start to settle my rampaging heart. His breath is warm and light against my chilled face. I nod, and his grip over my mouth eases until he’s cupping my chin, his thumb making tender tracks along my cheek.
“I found these. They’re banged up, but they should still do the trick.” Gently, so gently, he slides my glasses back on my face.
Needing to make sure he’s okay, I turn to look at him. His mouth is a breath away and the air between us tangles. The warm brown in his green eyes seems to glow, and to my horror, I feel tears well up again.
“Beau, I—” I press my hands against his chest. Blood is sticky between my fingers.
“I know, sweetheart.”
A pair of brown eyes in a too-young face flashes into my mind, pleading. I shy away from the memory, and the flashes that follow, each one more tactile, more visceral than the last. The feel of my knife puncturing through thick skin, the spray of hot, salty blood against my face, the foul stench on his limp body.
“Stay here with me, Eden,” Beau orders. Then he makes a sound of frustration deep in his throat. “I need to signal Dom, okay? It’ll be loud.”
Burying my fingers in his shirt, I nod again. Breathing through my nose, I focus on Beau, scanning his body for injuries.
There’s a cut on his left arm that’s bled a bit but seems to have stopped. A bruise is coming up on his right cheekbone. Blood and mud splatter his clothes, but the blood doesn’t seem to be coming from him. He’s less injured than I am.
Beau lets out a piercing whistle, followed by two shorter hoots, lower than the last. I don’t flinch.
“Are they all dead?” I whisper as we wait.
“They better be, or I just called them all over to say hello,” Beau says. Studying my face, he winces. “Sorry. They’re all gone, darlin’。 Dom’s just done the final sweep, but I’m sure we got them all.”
We. That includes me, I realize, that acidic, gnawing nausea building in my stomach. I got one too.
“Easy there,” Beau murmurs, pulling me closer.
A whistle sounds to our right, and Beau calls out, “Here.”
Dom appears through the brush, dark and fierce and bristling with a palpable energy. It’s hard to tell with my vision out of focus, but I’m sure color runs high along his cheekbones. He looks both of us over, brows raising slightly at my bloodied hands. I bury them deeper into Beau’s shirt, not wanting him to see how badly I fucked up this time.
And I did. It’s not a mess, I didn’t bungle it. I fucked up.
“We’re clear. There’s the brook back the way we came where we can clean up.”
Clean. A laugh sticks in my throat. A Macbethian urge to scrub at my stained skin rises, but look how it turned out for her.
Some things can’t be wiped away.
“She okay?”
“She’s alive,” is all Beau says.
His hand wraps around the back of my neck, and he urges me forward. Something relaxes in me as he takes charge.
Suddenly, I want to turn it all over to him. He can take responsibility for all of it, for all of me. Dom and Beau, the other men, they know what to do in these situations. With these kinds of feelings. I was so, so wrong to think I could do it myself.
“You dropped your knife.”
When I turn, stomach dipping, Dom is ducking to pick up the pocketknife. My pocketknife.
“No.”
My voice is barely audible, and he’s scooped up the bloody, awful thing before I can stop him.
“Here.”
I stumble back a step into Beau. “I don’t want it.”
I sound panicked, and after my vomiting fit, my throat is raw and sore. Dom stops and studies me, and I cringe away from that knowing stare.
He tucks the little knife behind his belt and lifts his hands.
Tears prick my eyes again, and I swallow twice, trying to keep it together. Beau’s hand moves to the middle of my back, and he nudges me.