Page 10 of The Arabis Triad

Before he’d taken a step, an alarm sounded through the craft.

“What’s that?” Paxt said.

Coltan bolted to the door. “Something’s been caught in a trap.”

Chapter Five

Evelyn

She’d run as far as she could, which probably wasn’t very far at all given how her limbs refused to cooperate and cold sweat broke out on her body despite the heat and black dots passed in her vision. The surrounding green leaves of the forest had become a blur.

Her toes caught on something. She stumbled and fell forward, but she didn’t make it to the ground. A net surrounded her and she was whisked into a tree, bouncing like a crazy piñata.

She tried to wriggle, but she could barely move. One arm was thrust behind her, and her other elbow was caught in one of the squares between the netting. Pain ripped up her arm. She’d forgotten about the injured wrist, which was twisted against her stomach. Now there was no forgetting it.

She tried to get her arm free, but the more she moved, the tighter the net became until her lungs fought to drag in air. Her chest constricted. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t get enough oxygen. Her lungs burned and her throat swelled. A roar exploded in her ears before the blackness began to devour her.

A sharp jerk jolted her body and she was falling. She tensed, expecting to slam into the ground. Instead, she landed in the firm hold of strong arms, pressed against a broad, muscular chest. She was barely aware of being lowered to the ground. The strands of the net disappeared and she sucked in air. It was all she could do but breathe in again and again and again. Her heart slowed, the vise around her chest disappeared, and she drifted back to her senses.

The dappled sunlight was blotted out by the broad shoulders of the three men who had uncaged her. One of them spoke, his voice a deep rumble, but the words didn’t make sense.

She glanced down to see large hands splayed over various parts of her body. Her arms. Her thigh. One spanned the width of her waist. Her naked waist. Somehow the towel she’d dressed herself in had disappeared with being caught up in a net and nearly suffocating.

She was entirely vulnerable and all eyes were locked on her, insect under the microscope style. They could do anything to her, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it, except put up a flimsy fight.

She screamed, her heels and palms slipping uncontrollably over the wet leaves on the ground in her haste to get away.

Tatt-man went to grab her, but Man-bun snarled something, and his hand immediately dropped. She rammed into something hard and rough. A tree stump. If she could, she would get up and run off again, but in reality all she could do was pant, sweat, and try not to cry. Her body had hit its limit.

“Stay away from me!” She swallowed hard, her breath shaking in her throat. She folded her legs and placed an arm over her breasts in an attempt to cover herself.

Boy-band, the dirty blond with the short back and sides, growled, a deep sound that came from low in his chest. He thrust something in her direction. To her utter amazement, it was the towel.

It took her a moment to work up the courage to snatch it out of his grasp and she hastily covered as much of her body as her shaking hands could manage. The men played stare-off for long moments, but at least they didn’t make another move on her.

These were the men who had rescued her from the cages and the Reptile monsters, but that didn’t fill her with any confidence. She’d still woken up in that coffin thing. There was no telling what the hell they’d been doing to her and she wasn’t going back to find out.

She swallowed, her throat hard and dry. “Now what?”

Man-bun moved toward her, but she jerked, shying away as far as she could press herself back into the tree. If it could have swallowed her, she would have let it.

“Don’t come anywhere near me.” She pointed at Man-bun, the breath sawing in and out of her lungs. He rested his knee on the ground and came no further, thank god.

They spoke between themselves, their voices winding around her, filtering into her body like warm whiskey. Soothing. Calming. Good god, she was going insane. She had to get out of here. Get back in her own head, like before she found herself catapulted into the canopy in that net. There was an indefinablesomethingabout these men. If she let her defenses down, even a little, she’d be toast.

These men somehow had the capacity to change her life forever.

She wasn’t going to let that happen. Not when the only thing she could think about was getting back home, and warning everyone about Reptile monsters and the missing women. There was a high chance she’d end up in an institution, but at least she’d have given fair warning.

“Talk all you want, but I’m not coming with you. So… you might as well all go away, Go on. Shoo. Leave me alone.” She waved her hands at them as though brushing them away.

None of them moved, although the corner of Boy-band’s mouth ticked upwards. That was strange. She had to wonder if they could understand her, however slim that chance would be. She wasn’t going to stick around long enough to find out.

She weighed her options up. She was surrounded by large, dewy leaves and a thick forest of vines that let glimpses of sunlight filter through a dense canopy. The leaves to her sides were large and tightly packed together. One of them would cover her whole body. She could hide quite well, but the chances of running away with a lapse of attention on their behalf was next to nothing.

She studied Man-bun. He watched her with the patience and sharpness of a predator, his eyes black. His beard was close cropped, the same dark blond as his hair that had been hastily pulled into a knot on the top of his head.

All of them had blond hair. Boy-band was probably the darkest, but only by a fraction. Tatt-man wore his tangled strands to his shoulders. She risked a glimpse of his arms and chest. Swirls of black, highlighted with magentas and purples were inked into any spare real-estate of skin.

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