Page 10

Eden

Nature can harm or heal.

Just like lying, wicked women.

It rained overnight. It’s sweltering again today, of course, but between the sticky heat, and the mud, and my soggy socks, it’s been a miserable final day of travel.

Though, soggy socks or no, I don’t think I’m having the hardest time of our group.

Beau swipes the air again, and I nibble on my lower lip, torn.

He glares around him, a deep scowl painting his face.

Over the last few days, I’ve quietly handed out lavender around the camp until everyone is more or less mosquito-free.

Even Dom has some tucked into his kit, after his impromptu bonding—bondage? —session with Lucky.

But Beau . . .

Fiery red welts cover his face and neck, even the backs of his hands. Beside him, Dom swerves to avoid getting smacked, his jaw tight.

As I bend over to gather some echinacea, Beau’s eyes catch on me, then skitter sideways before I can make eye contact. He scratches absently at the back of his neck as he pivots away like he never saw me.

I yank the pretty purple flowers out by their roots, long past fed up.

I know I screwed up, but this silent treatment is infuriating . We won’t be able to fix anything—with us or the Sinners—unless we can talk.

Beau is a child . I hope he enjoys his mosquito bites. I hope he gets swarmed by them. I hope they bite him between his shoulder blades. On his butt cheek. Between his toes .

I stare at the sludgy crevasse I’ve created in the mud and straighten.

That’s enough echinacea for now.

I clean off the clumpy roots as I trail behind the two of them, once again dropping to the back of the group, trying to convince myself that I’m not trying to delay the inevitable.

We’re close enough to Bristlebrook now that I’m recognizing landmarks, and my feet keep speeding up despite myself. Then slowing down. Then speeding up.

I’m a mess.

I haven’t seen Jayk since I left for Cyanide and he stayed to protect the civilians. He needed time to think, and he’s had two weeks. Surely, he’s made his decision by now.

Speed up.

God, what if he’s decided he doesn’t want me? What if he’s decided that this whole sharing-me-with-multiple-people business is all too much, and I’m not worth all this awful, soul-tearing struggle?

Slow down.

No. I know Jayk loves me. I wrote him the letter—it was a good letter.

He has to choose me.

I’m speeding up when I see a sprouting of feverfew and veer to gather that up too, though my boot squelches deeply into a muddy puddle. I ignore the brown slurry that trickles into my sock—feverfew is a fantastic find.

However Jayk feels about me, I’m going to find out very, very soon.

If it doesn’t change when he hears what I did.

Low, dark laughter lures me from my thoughts, and I look over to see Jasper’s lips still dusted with it. Lucky is walking beside him, his head tilted intimately, with this happy, dazzled smile that squeezes my heart.

Lucky has been helping me fill out the—frankly terrifying—limits list Jasper gave me, and it’s been a nerve-racking experience.

It’s seven pages long , and it’s . . . comprehensive, covering everything from kinks and specific toys to dozens of acts, to how I do or don’t want to feel, what concerns or phobias or triggers I might have, to what I want aftercare to look like.

Many things I’ve already talked about with Beau, and even Jayk—but also plenty I haven’t. Plenty we haven’t needed to.

And Lucky smirked his way through the entire blasted thing.

Their shoulders shift together with each step, and Lucky glances back to check on me. While debating whether or not to just pluck the leaves now, I wave an exasperated hand at him to keep on. The attention is sweet, but it’s nice to finally be more than fifteen feet apart.

Slap.

Beau curses, and to my surprise Dom breaks his silence to snap, “Would you shut it ?”

I pull a final bunch of feverfew and follow quietly. Their backs are to me, but when Dom turns through the sparse trees, I see he’s pinched with irritation and paler than usual.

“It’s these heinous flying freeloaders. They won’t leave me alo—” Beau stops midway through an air-swipe to frown at Dom. “Well, you look like a soup sandwich.”

“Just sick of hearing you bitch about the wildlife,” Dom says, ducking under a branch.

Beau’s frown deepens. “Dominic.”

“ Beaumont .”

My heart crunches like gripped paper. It’s the same words, but offbeat—like someone missing the punchline of their favorite joke.

“Fine.” Slap . “Son of a—” Beau stops himself with visible difficulty. “ Fine .”

They walk in silence for a few minutes, and I harvest a few leaves from my flowers as I step over branches and listen to the low murmur of Jasper and Lucky up farther ahead. Sloane calls back from the front of the pack, telling us to make the final turn toward Bristlebrook.

“We should talk about what to tell people when we get back,” Beau starts, and I edge as close as I dare to catch the lowered words. “Then we’ll need to put together a supply plan.”

“You do that.”

Beau holds the spindly leaves of a tall bush back for Dom. “Come on, Dom. We had a bad run. You need to un-fuck yourself so we can fix it. You have a team here.”

Dom pauses, then says quietly, “It’s not my team. Not anymore.”

The words ice my stomach.

“Now, you don’t mean that. We’ll fix this—we just need a plan.”

Dom walks past him without a word, and Beau stares at his back for a long moment, his tanned jaw working. He drags his feet after Dom, and I squeeze past the bush to follow. “You know the civs are going to be mad as all hell that we left Heather behind.”

The feverfew leaves crumple in my fingers. The sap spills over my fingers, and I wipe it off with shaking hands, knowing from experience that my skin doesn’t like the mild irritation.

The hatred in Heather’s eyes still spits at me from my memories.

Bentley’s panic.

Oh, God. What are we going to do when Red Zone contacts us? We can’t go back into Cyanide again. We can’t take them in either, not the way we are. We’re worse off than they are.

But it’s still our mess.

My mess.

What if Alastair is still giving them trouble? How much more is he going to demand from them?

Dom’s calm doesn’t waver, but when he looks back at Beau, I can see the deceptiveness of it. The deadly fins and lashing tails deep under the still surface.

“Heather’s out there taking the heat for all of us because of bad leadership and bad calls.

We’ve lost most of our arsenal. The weather’s going to turn, and we don’t have enough rations to see us through.

We’re all going to starve.” The words hang like a noose.

“You want to tell them something? Tell them that.”

Beau eyes Dom uneasily.

“Maybe I’ll... paraphrase.” He grabs Dom’s shoulder and pulls him to a stop. “Hey, seriously, you look like shit.”

Dom tips his head back. “Just a headache. It’s your fucking accent.”

I hover by the prickly bush and try to make it look like I’m not actively stalking them. But the thread of discomfort in his voice has my fingers itching to check him over.

Beau beats me to it.

“Have you had enough water?” He pulls his canteen from his pack.

Dom presses the heel of his hand between his brows. “Save the lecture, doc . I’ve heard it before.”

Beau shoves his canteen into Dom’s free hand anyway. “One of the most common causes of?—”

“I’m hydrated, asshole. I drank my damn water.” He tries to shove the canteen back at Beau.

Beau doesn’t take it. “The Sinners swiped all my meds, so this is the best we’ve got. Drink up, princess.”

I clear my throat. “I can help.”

Two heads lift in unison, and I shift from foot to foot. There’s pretty much no way to hide that I’ve been peeping through the bushes at them.

Dom’s jaw flexes as he turns to keep walking. “I’m fine.”

His clipped voice stings, but I blurt, “You’re not, though.”

His footsteps falter, his heavy muscles bunching, and my voice catches as I add more softly, “You’re not, sir. Please let me help you.”

So slowly, Dom turns back to look at me, and his eyes find mine. My mouth goes dry at the force of them. It’s like getting hit by flowing lava, fierce and hot and glowing gold.

Oh God. I called him sir again! What is wrong with me? The man is in pain. I need to be muzzled .

Beau’s gaze rolls between us, his brow knitting in confusion.

Then he rubs the back of his neck, avoiding my eyes again. They settle instead on the flowers in my hands. “What is that?”

“Feverfew.” Grateful for the distraction, I stumble through the bush, ignoring the sharp pricks—there’s enough of those around already—and stop in front of him to show him.

“It’s perfect for headaches, but he can’t eat the raw leaves.

They’ll cause sores in his mouth. I can make him a tea when we get back to Bristlebrook. ”

“But what is it? A lot of these herbal remedies have side effects, Eden. I don’t think this is a good idea.” Beau’s white teeth bite down into his lower lip, and I force myself to forget the way they dug into my skin when I came.

I blink, offended. “I wouldn’t give him something that would hurt him. Unless he has allergies to?—”

“How do you know he doesn’t?” His voice is burred and prickly with irritation. He crosses his tanned, corded arms over his chest. “We’ll still have some actual medicine back at Bristlebrook. They’re very sweet, but you can put your flowers away, darlin’.”

Dom’s tense expression takes on a vicious edge. “Fucking enough , Beau.”

Slap.

Beau curses under his breath, scowling around himself at invisible mosquitos.

Sweet ? Ooh . This man !

I glower at Beau as that solicitous condescension rubs against everything raw and irritated inside of me. It pokes at my vulnerabilities like a scalpel.

But things are different now. I am different now.

Something was seeded when I broke our deal, and it grew roots when I fought back, when I spoke up, as I’ve grown. That same something held me up in Cyanide, and it’s now stubbornly butting up against my guilt and shoring up all those soft places inside me.

I’ve apologized for my mistakes, and I will make up for them—but I don’t deserve this from him. I’m no one’s emotional punching bag anymore. If he has a problem with me, then he needs to use his words, even if I have to drag him kicking and screaming into an adult conversation.

And if he won’t, then I’m spraying sugar water on his clothes and letting the mosquitos have him.

“We can’t rely on modern medicine forever, Beau. We’re going to run out. It will all expire eventually. Or be used. Or stolen.” I refrain from stamping my foot. Like a lady. And—ladylike—I hiss, “Maybe consider that you aren’t always right for a change!”

He rubs his head like he’s the one with the headache. “Mouth sores, Eden? Sounds swell. Tell me, do you want him to suffer?”

Anger fizzes in my veins. “No, you patronizing?—”

Dom’s hand falls from his face, and he glares at both of us. “Can it, both of you, I’m fine . Move out . ”

We both whirl on him. “ You’re not fine .”

My mouth snaps shut at the same time as Beau’s, our words echoing through the trees. I tense and feel Beau do the same. He presses against my shoulder, hot and heavy, and I realize we’ve ended up side by side.

I can’t look at him.

He hasn’t touched me in over a week, and even this—this pathetic, glancing graze of skin—is swallowing my anger in seconds. It becomes something aching and lonely. After weeks of drowning in his scent and talking every night, this distance between us is wrong .

Beau doesn’t look at me either, so I try to ignore the heat of him and focus on Dom.

On him, at least, we can agree.

Dom is stone-faced, braced and standing against us. He’s different today. Every gentle curve of humor has hardened, and the strength he was starting to yield is newly callused. Dom is too proud—he’s always been too proud—but these new defenses look impossible to chip.

I fixate on the stiff, invulnerable line of his mouth, and, abruptly, I want to cry.

A scorching lump lodges deep in my throat when Beau’s hand hesitantly brushes my waist. “You should have some of the flower tea. Maybe it... maybe she can help.”

His voice is husky, suddenly uncertain, and I have to swallow my own lump down.

Is this better than his pain? To have Dom back in his relentless leadership role, arrogant and uncompromising... and hating me? Will he cut me down the way he used to, like a tank pressing down every soft roadblock in its way?

Maybe it is better. I’d rather hurt for him than let him bleed.

“It will help you, sir. Please let me help you,” I whisper, desperate for him to hear everything under it.

That serious mouth firms in dismissal.

My heart buckles, and my trembling fingertips brush the rigid corner.

Right as the forest explodes in a deafening roar.