Page 66 of Citadel

We wait more than an hour before anything happens.

I’ve zoned off into a bleak daze, but then I feel Cole’s body tense up behind me. He gestures down toward the camp.

I squint until I see what he’s seen.

A female figure. A glint of red hair.

I gasp and fight the instinct to jump to my feet.

I’m sure I wouldn’t have done it, but Cole puts his hand on my back to keep me down. “She came out of the big tent,” he murmurs, so soft it’s almost inaudible.

“What’s she holding?”

“Not sure. Maybe clothes?”

“Clothes?” I blink. “Oh, maybe she’s going to wash them in the creek. They’ve got her doing their chores.” It makes me sick—the idea of her having to take care of men like this—but I’m too excited about finally seeing her to focus on it for long.

“Yeah. Looks like that’s what she’s doing.”

She heads for the creek, not too far away from the campsite, and then kneels down next to the water and washes out one piece of clothing after another.

She’s really not that far away from us. If I called out, she’d hear me.

But so would everyone else.

“We’ve got to let her know we’re here,” I whisper. “Wehaveto.”

“How the fuck can we do that?” He sounds grumpy, but I don’t think it’s at me. He’s probably brutally frustrated by the helplessness of the situation—just like I am.

I search my mind but come up with no good solutions. “Maybe if we just give her a signal or something.”

“And alert the guards? No fucking way.”

“She’s so close. We have to let her know we’re here.”

“Give me a minute. I’ll come up with something.”

I hope so because I have no ideas at all other than standing up and screaming her name.

She’s too far away to see her expression, but something about her posture looks heavy, battered, so incredibly tired.

She thinks there’s no hope.

Until this minute, I was afraid of that too.

It takes a powerful act of will not to follow every instinct in my body and run over to her right now. It’s an act of such agonizing restraint that my eyes burn. My fingers tremble.

Cole puts his hand on my back, rubbing in tight circles. He doesn’t say anything, but he comforts me anyway.

We watch until she’s getting near the end of the pile of clothes. She’s only giving them a half-hearted wash, and who can blame her?

My knees are starting to hurt from holding this uncomfortable position for too long. I shift, trying to adjust my weight more evenly, and I accidentally push a couple of loose rocks.

They roll several feet down the hill, making a scuffling noise that sounds terrifyingly loud to my ears.

Cole moves his hand to the back of my head and pushes me down toward the ground, getting as low as he can at the same time.

There’s no alert, so Cole lessens the pressure on my head. I peer through the bushes to see what’s happening.

---