by Adele Huxley
Without a shout, Hadley launched herself at Penny with a frightening deftness. Rebel tried to catch her but she was too slow. Phoenix saw the attack coming and flung himself between the two women. This set Hunter into motion and between the two of them, they managed to keep the women apart. Barely.
Surprisingly, the whole thing hardly caused more noise than the scuffing of shoes on the floorboards.
Hadley strained against Hunter’s grip, one manicured finger pointing straight at Penny. “There’s something not right about her and you know it.”
Penny twitched under his hand at the accusation but didn’t respond.
“Come on, now,” Hunter whispered.
Hadley stared at him with fiery eyes and repeated herself. “She’s lying and you know it!”
“We can’t trust her,” Rebel added sadly.
Suddenly, the room felt strictly divided. Phoenix and Penny were on one side. The others all staring ominously, waiting for their response.
He realized it was a pivotal moment for him. He could easily back away and let them do what they wanted with her. Despite her heartfelt confession the night before, he couldn’t deny the niggle of doubt in his brain. But was it there for a good reason? Or was it habit? He never trusted anyone…
Phoenix twisted to face her. He dipped his head low to catch her eye, calmly pleading with her to tell the truth. “I know it’s hard to talk about, but are you absolutely sure nothing else happened? They didn’t say anything? Hand you anything?”
Penny bristled under his touch but didn’t pull away. The way she frowned at him broke his heart, but he held firm.
“They didn’t even give me toilet paper, if that’s what you’re asking. I had to drip dry.”
“Tie the bitch up,” Hadley declared. She broke free from Hunter’s grip and walked off.
Phoenix felt his shoulders slump. She was right. They had no choice but to secure her. At the very least, it would placate the others and make her easier to protect.
Penny seemed to see it in his gaze. Although her brows were set in a firm line, the pain in her eyes was obvious. Without a word, she turned and offered her hands behind her back.
As he collected the strips of rope and started to wrap them around her raw wrists, he thought he might throw up. The idea he could be doing the same thing to her that asshole boyfriend had done made his stomach churn.
“Make sure he’s tying it right,” Hadley commanded.
“I’ve got it,” he snapped back.
He was never very good at tying knots but it felt tight enough. “That’s not hurting you, right?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “It’s not hurting my wrists.” The clarification wasn’t lost on him.
Penny settled on the floor and accepted the blanket he draped over her lap. With a calm, unyielding look, she scanned the room.
“Now how about you tell me what it is I was supposed to have said?”
Chapter 13
Of all the things that had happened to her over the past week, Phoenix tying her up was the hardest to handle. What made it so difficult was knowing she couldn’t show any outward sign of hurt or fear. Her life was on the line and whether these people knew it or not, they’d just put her in more danger than the kidnappers had thus far. Panicked people don’t think straight, and with Hadley gunning for her, she was doubly screwed.
The sooner I’m out of these ropes, the better, she thought as she settled to the floor.
She felt no animosity toward Phoenix. In fact, his defense of her had all but convinced her he was worthy of her trust.
“Now how about you tell me what it is I was supposed to have said?”
“How about you go fuck yourself?” Hadley laughed.
Penny looked to Hunter and Miah, to anyone but that mouthy bitch. “Can I at least talk with someone whose IQ is slightly higher than their sexual partner count?”
The side of Hunter’s mouth curled. “That rules me out.”
Phoenix physically stepped in front of her protectively. “Enough. This bullshit has to stop.” He turned to look down at her. “Agreed?”
“Put a muzzle on her and I’ll play nice,” Penny shrugged. She couldn’t help it. Some people just brought it out in her. Even under the circumstances, poking at her was irresistible.
Claire appeared at the door, confidently striding in without a care in the world. “What’s going on? I can’t hear much through the wall.”
“The guards brought her back,” Rebel replied diplomatically.
Claire sank to a crouch by her side, apparently oblivious to the fact she was tied up. Charlie appeared in the room, lingering in the entrance visible over her shoulder.
“I know you don’t speak Esperanto, but can you remember anything they said? Did you touch any of the things on the table?”
“Table?” Penny frowned. “Where did they take you? What happened? What did they say?”
Claire opened her mouth to reply but Hadley cut in. “She’s one of them, remember?” she snarled.
“Them,” Penny scoffed. She looked to Miah, who more than anyone in the room, should’ve understood. “Come on, man. You can vouch for me.”
“It uh… it was a few years ago,” he replied politically, looking to the others for understanding.
With the weight of their judgement on his shoulders, not mention his own survival, she wasn’t surprised he backed down. It still stung a little.
The group broke away in hushed whispers. Claire and Rebel glanced over at Penny on the floor, clearly discussing what was to be done with her.
Penny nudged Phoenix’s foot with hers until he looked down. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What is it?” he asked in a voice louder than she would’ve liked. It pulled the attention back to her, exactly where she didn’t want it.
Hadley didn’t miss a beat. “She’s just manipulating you! If we weren’t here, that duplicitous mouth would be trying to suck you off instead of lying.”
Penny chuckled. “Someone’s practicing her big girl words.”
“I swear to fuck, I’m gonna—”
Phoenix pulled her to her feet. His strong hands on either arm easily hoisted her up. The strength and power made her feel a little weak, a sensation she tried her best to ignore. Judging from the look in his eye, he wasn’t much in the mood for anything but the truth.
He guided her to the far corner of the pen, shooing Anna out of the way in the process. After gently forcing her into the corner and shielding her from the others, he nodded. “Go on.”
The words stuck in her throat. As sure as she’d been a moment before, she was suddenly terrified she was making a huge mistake. If she was wrong about Phoenix, if she had misplaced her trust, this would be the end of her. The rescue team had obviously been delayed…
His eyebrows bounced with wordless urging. With a roll of her eyes, she twitched her chin, indicating he had to get closer.
“Everything I told you about why I’m here is true.”
“Okay…”
“Except…”
Phoenix pulled back, his handsome features contorting in a mixture of anger and hurt. She stood on her toes and leaned into him to reach his ear. Without her arms to balance on his chest, she had to trust he would carry her weight. He did.
“There’s a conspiracy to sabotage the Unity Games, but it’s linked to a larger political group they’ve been trying to stop.”
“Okay…” he repeated. The doubt creeping into his voice tightened her throat.
“At least one person in the group is on Team USA. It’s my job to work out who.”
Phoenix steadied her back on her heels as he pulled away. He studied her eyes, searching for the truth. She knew lie after lie after lie didn’t instill the kind of trust she needed in this situation, but it was done. Everything she had to give, she’d spread out before him. Now, it was a matter of whether he’d accept it.
“Why are you telling me?”
She felt
a smile touch the corner of her mouth. “Because I know you aren’t the mole.”
His hazel eyes hardened. “How can you be so sure?”
Penny desperately wanted to kiss him in the same way he’d kissed her the night before. But it went deeper than their physical attraction. There was something buried in their souls that connected, a shared pain that joined them. The cracks and tears seemed to call to each other. Surely he could feel it too.
“I just do.”
Phoenix’s jaw clenched. His nostrils flared. He rubbed the shaggy hair at the top of his head with one hand, yet his eyes didn’t budge from hers.
“Ethan’s teammate still isn’t back, right? Pay attention to what people are doing and saying. Ask yourself if they might have ulterior motives.”
Phoenix shook his head and looked away. “But why? Why would anyone do this?”
“I honestly don’t know. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence they targeted our bus. Rhett, Claire, and I were getting close and someone didn’t like that.”
“Why did you tell me this? Why now?”
“Because I knew I could trust you.”
“I took a fucking beating for you,” he replied with a scowl. “You couldn’t have trusted me before you were tied back up?”
Penny couldn’t cover her reaction. She knew she should’ve immediately acknowledged it, but the lingering doubt bubbled up too quickly to hide.
“I mean… I didn’t see it happen.”
“I need to think,” he muttered. He turned to walk away and her heart leapt into her throat. Don’t tell them! She wanted to scream it, to pull him back and force him to understand. If the mole was in this group, and she was fairly certain they were, he couldn’t let them know who she was.
Never before had her life hung so precariously in the balance.
Chapter 14
Penny sank back to the floor with a thump. She watched Phoenix return to the group, their voices low. Every few moments their eyes darted over to the corner where she sat. At first, it made her feel vulnerable and alone. But as they stopped looking over, she felt abandoned.
She pulled her legs up and balanced her forehead on her knees. Fighting back tears, she idly played with the rope at her wrists.
Phoenix was terrible at tying knots. She could easily slip out but it wouldn’t do her any good. Her freedom would be determined by the conclusions of the group, not the restraints around her body.
A part of her wanted to laugh. She’d fought so hard to avoid falling into this same position again, she’d managed to trip right back into it. Not the captivity.
Love.
She glanced up at Phoenix’s form. The emotions she felt for him almost morphed into hatred they were so strong. She loathed his existence in a way. He made her weak. He made her worry about someone other than herself, and that was a liability.
Maybe if she hadn’t met him, she wouldn’t be in this mess. If she hadn’t marked him as an easy target, she wouldn’t have fallen for him. And now, in the darkest moment since her kidnapping, she found herself reluctantly admitting she had strong feelings.
What she could never admit to him, or even to herself, was throughout the kidnapping, she’d still loved Keith. He was her boyfriend. He cared about her. He’d twisted her around so badly a part of her had been convinced he’d done it all for her. She blamed herself, thinking in the darkest moments that it was all her fault for not being easier to love.
And even though she’d gone through hundreds of hours of therapy, been mentally cleared to go into the field, she was afraid to trust her own gut.
Penny lifted her eyes and stared at him through her hair.
Have I fallen down the same hole again? Did I just throw my trust to a man who will crush me? Am I convincing myself there’s something there when really, I’m being expertly played?
Chapter 15
Phoenix could feel Penny’s eyes on his back. He was barely listening to what the group was talking about.
To be honest, he felt numb. All the adrenaline, the ups and downs, it’d left him drained and unable to process anything quickly.
Another lie. This one was by omission and while he could understand her reasoning for it, it still stung. Was it one lie too many?
All the facts pointed to one thing; he couldn’t trust her. Shouldn’t. Hadley was right to push her away.
But with this final piece of the puzzle, he began to see the whole picture for the first time.
Alone, confused, sent away to a foreign country for a task she felt wholly unprepared for. It was scary. And then they met. Maybe he was part of the plan, maybe their coming together was complete chance. But in either case, he didn’t think the connection they had was orchestrated. It explained why things were so complicated between them.
“I still think we should make a break for it,” Hadley insisted.
“If we untie everyone in the barn, then we all have a chance,” Rebel added.
Claire shook her head and waved her free hands. “They obviously don’t care about us being secured anymore. That can’t be a good sign. It means they aren’t afraid of us getting away.”
“Maybe they want us to try?” Hunter suggested. The others looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Maybe they’re in too deep, or something went wrong.”
“What in the holy hell are you talking about?” Hadley asked, her head cocked to the side.
“What if we were all cows being led to the slaughter, but at the last second, the butchers changed their minds and left the gate open? But we’re all just stupid cows staring at an open fence, unwilling to run through.”
“Butchers don’t slaughter,” Claire corrected. "They butcher."
“Cause that was the relevant part of my point.”
Phoenix’s mind drifted again, trying to narrow down on his own answers. He didn’t know how long he’d spaced out when an errant comment pulled him back to the present.
“And what do we do with her?”
Claire wrapped her arm around Charlie’s waist as she hooked her thumb toward Penny. The pair stood together as casually as if they were all hanging out at the beach. Her posture rang in the most jarring thought.
It could be one of them. It could be anyone.
He tasted a tiny portion of the doubt and insecurity Penny carried for the last week.
“If it comes down to it, I’d put my faith on another athlete than a journalist,” Rebel replied morosely. “If that’s what she is.”
Phoenix locked eyes with her. Things were bad if Rebel was starting to turn. He needed to think quickly.
The strange thing was, of all the people in the pen with them, the one he knew the least held the most power.
Phoenix skirted around the outside of the group and caught Miah’s attention. With a quick jerk of the chin, he separated him from the others.
“What’s up?” he whispered as they walked away.
“Penny. You said you knew her.” It wasn’t so much of a question as a demand he clarify.
Miah ran his tongue along the front of his teeth and turned his back to her fully. “I don’t want to do anything to hurt her.”
“She told me who she’s really working for,” Phoenix added with meaning. He didn’t want to lead the guy, but had to let him know he knew more than the others. “I just need verification. You’re the only person here who knew her before all this shit.”
“Right. Well. As far as I know, she’s not a journalist, but she helped me and my girlfriend a lot a couple years back. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a stand-up chick, but some of the shit the others have been saying…”
Phoenix nodded quickly and cut in. “What about her leaving? You made it sound like she disappeared.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s cause she did. One day there, the next she was gone.”
“No reason. No fight. Just gone?”
“Yeah, pretty much.” Miah waited a few seconds before patting him on the shoulder. “We good, man?”
Miah rejoined the group and left him on the opposite side of the small pen.
As he thought, he slowly turned to face her, as if he at least owed her that much.
Penny had lied to him over and over again. She had recorded his friends, spied on him, kept things from the others that might’ve saved them pain. Rebel had been chased in the middle of a snowstorm. Penny had posted manipulated photos that almost ruined Rhett and Rebel’s relationship.
But she was also the only person he’d held in the middle of the night. She was the only one he’d kissed, who he’d truthfully felt a connection with.
Of all the people in the room with him, he was surprised to realize she was the one he was most sure of. Not a hundred percent, but more than anyone else.
I’ve lived my whole life never allowing myself to trust another person, least of all a woman.
He met Penny’s eye, as if she could read his thoughts.
I would rather trust and get hurt than chance her life.
Without speaking, he walked past the others and strode toward her. She raised her chin from her knees and looked up fearfully.
Again, as gently as he could, he lifted her to her feet. He slipped a hand behind her back, their eyes locked, noses only a fraction of an inch apart. When his fingers met the rope, he realized it was already loose.
They shared a small smile as the bindings fell to the floor. He knew he’d made the right decision. She could’ve escaped at any time, but chose to stay.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Hadley barked.
He turned to face her, knowing that Hunter was at her back and ready to jump in.
“This isn’t a democracy and you aren’t a queen. If we’re getting out of here, Penny is coming with us.”