Chapter 5
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until Lee startled me awake when he whistled loudly. An answering whistle sounded, but the rocky ceiling of the cave was spinning, and I couldn’t keep my eyelids open.
“What the fuck? Are you bleeding?” I heard Lee demand, his voice distorted.
“I’m gonna kill you,” a new voice growled.
“Wolf, later!” a feminine voice snapped.
“I swear she was not bleeding an hour ago,” Lee said.
“Where the fuck are her clothes?”
“She went fuckin’ charging into the river! I had to get her into something dry!”
Hands maneuvered me onto my back, and I tried to focus, but I couldn’t get my eyes to open. I shook with full body chills and cool fingers pressed against my nose and face.
“Looks like it was just a bloody nose, but she’s burning up,” a low voice said.
“She’s been burning up for fuckin’ hours. I tried cooling her down with some snowpacks.”
“We need to get her back to the cabin as fast as possible.”
“Wrap her in that blanket. I’ll ride the horse with her.”
Even with my eyes closed, the room spun as they bundled me like an infant. The next thing I knew, I was on a horse, galloping through the woods. I tried to focus on who held me, but everything faded away.
I opened my eyes as Wolf carried me to the cabin fireplace while sharply barking orders.
His lips pressed together in a flat line, and his eyes flashed as he unwrapped the damp, muddy blanket around me.
I shivered hard, my teeth chattering, and barely remembered to cling to the collar of Lee’s shirt, ensuring it stayed closed.
Kai appeared with a fresh blanket, and the two of them wrapped it around me while Tuck hovered behind them.
“What happened?” Kai asked.
“She jumped in the river,” Wolf snarled. “They were at the bolthole.”
“Where are the others?” Tuck frowned.
“Coming on foot.”
“Was freezing to death part of your genius escape plan?” Kai asked me, but I ignored him.
“Is that her blood?” Tuck gestured to my face.
“Sable said it was from her nose, but it stopped. She’s fuckin’ burning up.”
Kai reached out to me, and I flinched away. He withdrew his hand, eyes narrowing.
“I’m just tryin’ to check your temperature,” he said.
I closed my eyes. Something happened, but I couldn’t quite remember what it was. Something about a cave?—
A hand pressed against my forehead, and I jumped.
“Yeah, she’s way too hot. Maybe we should take the blanket off.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s only wearing one of Lee’s shirts,” Wolf growled.
A short silence fell.
“So, how bad is this gonna be?” Tuck asked dryly. “Bad like The Cedars or bad like Jackson?”
“I might actually kill him this time,” Wolf muttered.
“You want some cool washcloths or something?”
“Yeah, probably.”
The room spun again as they moved me, making my stomach lurch with nausea.
I sucked in a frantic breath through my nose, trying not to be sick.
When everything settled enough that I felt safe opening my eyes, I realized I lay on the couch, and Wolf sat beside me, studying my face.
It looked like there was a storm raging in his green eyes.
For a long time, the two of us stared at each other.
“You grew up,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, so did you.”
“Don’t tell him.” Fear seized my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
“Don’t tell who?”
I blinked in confusion. What was I talking about? “I dunno.”
“It’s ok, Em. You’re sick.”
“I don’t get sick.”
“This is why you shouldn’t jump in freezing rivers,” he snapped. “What were you thinking? You almost fuckin’ died .”
“Trey…” I frowned, panic spiking in my chest. “Where’s Trey?”
“Who’s Trey?”
“Please.” I opened my eyes, growing more and more panicked. “I can’t…I can’t do this. I need him!”
Someone murmured something I couldn’t make out, and he glanced at them before returning to me.
“Ok.” He reached out and smoothed my hair back from my face. “Ok, I’ll find Trey.”
I calmed down as I stared at him, my brain struggling to piece together where I was. “You look like my brother.”
A corner of his mouth ticked up. “I am your brother.”
I frowned. “No, my brother wants to kill me.”
The pain in his eyes was so sharp. “I don’t want to kill you, Emmy.”
My lips were so dry. “Don’t…don’t…” There was something important I was forgetting. I frowned, trying to think straight. It felt like my heart was pounding inside my head. “Where am I?”
“You’re safe,” he murmured.
Something ice cold touched my forehead, and I cringed.
“Hold still,” Kai grumbled. “We need to bring your fever down.”
“The fever’s back?” I stared at them in horror before attempting to sit. “I need to go to work.”
“Whoa.” Wolf pushed me back down by the shoulders. “You don’t need to go anywhere.”
“No, I have to…people are sick. Where are the kids?” I tried to sit again, struggling against his hold.
“What kids?” Wolf asked.
“No one is sick. Just you,” Kai said.
“No, I don’t…I gotta go check…I have to check…”
“Emmy, you need to lay and rest,” a stern voice said.
“I will after this next one, Mac, I promise,” I mumbled, trying to push the hands holding my shoulders down off me, even as my eyes closed. “I can do one more.”
“You’re done,” that stern voice said.
“Please get Trey, please. I need…” My voice trailed off as sleep claimed me.
Angry voices cut through the daze I was in.
“—one good reason why I shouldn’t.”
“Wolf, what the fuck do you think I should’ve done differently?”
“You never should’ve taken her into the woods in the first place!”
“Wolf,” a new voice said in a stern tone.
“Are you seriously siding with him?”
“What was he supposed to do, let her piss her pants? I think he did the best he could with the information he had, and that’s all any of us can do.” The voice was feminine and fierce. “He saved her life.”
“I told you not to trust her!”
“Look, I know I fucked up, alright, but I gotta?—”
“She lies, and she runs. You knew that!”
“Wolf, shut up a godsdamned minute! I gotta tell you something important.”
I cracked my eyelids open. Dark, blurry forms were moving around the room by the light of the fireplace. I tried to track them, but the movement made me dizzy and nauseous.
“ What, Lee?”
“She said your dad told her you were gonna hunt her down and kill her.”
The energy in the room shifted in a way that made me try to shrink into the couch.
“What did I just say?” Wolf sounded furious. “You can’t trust her.”
“I don’t think she was lyin’, man. She wasn’t even talking to me. She was so delirious she thought I was someone named Trey, and she kept begging me to hide so you wouldn’t kill me, too.”
“Trey?” someone asked softly. “Isn’t that who she was asking for earlier?”
Someone muttered something too quiet to make out.
“There’s more. She’s got huge scars all over her back, scars like someone whipped her. And she’s got a fucking ’J’ burned into the skin on her chest. That’s why she didn’t want to change her shirt in front of Scar earlier. ’Cause someone fuckin’ branded her.”
The abrupt silence crackled with tension. Panic built under my skin, the pressure almost unbearable.
“Somethin’s not right here.”
“Lee, she’s not?—”
“No, don’t give me that bullshit. I know you feel it, too. It’s why you’ve been in such a pissy mood since we got her. None of this is addin’ up. I’m not sayin’ she’s innocent. I’m just sayin’ somethin’ is not right.”
“She’s sort of awake,” someone said.
“Ember?”
I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids were so heavy.
“Can I look at the scar on your chest?”
I pried my eyes open with the burst of fear and adrenaline that question gave me. The one with the long blond hair was leaning over me, his face grave.
“My name is Sable,” he said. “I’m a healer.”
“Don’t,” my lips formed the word, but no sound came out.
“I just want to make sure you’re alright.”
“Don’t,” I tried again, and my voice rasped to life.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No.”
He glanced at someone I couldn’t see, his eyebrows drawing together. A new face appeared above me, and it took me a few seconds to realize it was Lee.
“Hey, Freckles,” he smiled, but it seemed strained. “Can you let Sable take a look at that scar?”
I stared at him.
“C’mon, it’ll just take a second. Then you can punch me.”
Someone muttered something I couldn’t make out, and Lee winced.
“Alright, fine, you gotta let Wolf work me over first, but I’m sure he’ll give you a turn eventually.”
I continued to stare at him. The vague fragments of memory flitting through my head were a conflicting mix of fear and something like comfort.
“You back to not talkin’ to me? Not even gonna swear at me?”
I flicked my eyes to Sable again as anxiety spiked, and I could see the determination in his eyes. My stomach churned with nausea, and I clutched the blanket to my chest with shaking hands.
“Ember, let him look,” Wolf spoke up from where he stood, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes looked angry.
This just kept getting fucking worse, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop them.
Somehow, I’d forgotten how awful it felt to be so alone and helpless.
I wished Wolf would have found me six months ago when I had all this fucking emotion locked down and under control.
I used to be strong and resilient. Now I was a bird on the ground, my wings torn from me—broken.
“Ember, just let Sable look. He’s a healer.”
I hated not being physically strong enough to keep people from touching me.
My breath started coming faster, and my heart felt like it pounded with a single word: trapped, trapped, trapped.
A hand landed on my shoulder, and I tried to flinch away, but the fingers tightened, holding me still.
My fragile hold on my sanity seemed to snap, and my mind jerked away in response, tumbling down a worn and familiar path.
I folded into myself like a paper map, buckling on creased edges again and again until I was small and insignificant—until I was gone.