Page 205 of What We Become

“Christ,” he rasps, his voice thick with pain as his eyes crack open. His gaze is slow, dragging across the barn before landing on me. There’s recognition there, but it fades quickly beneath a layer of tension.

“Holden,” I call softly, testing his awareness. “You with me?”

He breathes out hard, another groan escaping as he shifts against his bindings. “Define ‘with.’”

I almost laugh, but it feels like my ribs might splinter apart if I let it happen. “Glad you’re alive.”

“Alive?” Holden blinks hard like he’s trying to clear cobwebs from his brain. “Is that what this is supposed to count as? Where the hell are we?”

“A barn,” Milo mutters, his tone sharpening now that he’s shaking off the fog. “Some horror movie set, apparently.”

“Stephen,” I manage, my voice trembling as the anger rises under my skin, hot and caustic. “He took us after the crash. He must have⁠—”

A guttural groan cuts me off. My head jerks toward the sound, and Eli stirs, his hands twitching against the ropes that suspend him. His face scrunches in pain, a low hiss escaping his lips as his muscles strain against obvious discomfort. Then his hazel eyes flutter, but he’s struggling to keep them open.

“Eli,” I hiss. “Hey, come on, wake up.”

His eyes squint in the low light, his gaze shifting toward my voice. His lips part, his voice slurred but pointed. “Sage?”

“Yeah,” I breathe. “It’s me.”

His brows furrow, his head tipping back slightly to take in our surroundings.

“We’re all here,” I tell him. “Everyone except Knox.”

There’s a sharp inhale as his awareness seems to crystallize all at once, comprehension shadowing his features. “Fuck,” he mutters, his jaw tightening. “Do we know where he is?”

“No,” I say, pressure burning the backs of my eyes. “He was still holding me after the crash. Calling my name. I tried to answer him. But I couldn’t. And then . . . I woke up here.”

Micah hasn’t made a sound this whole time. When I finally look at him, his eyes are already open—gray-blue, steady, awake for longer than he’s letting on. That’s so exactly him it closes my throat. “Baby girl?” he murmurs, voice hoarse, dry. “You . . . safe?”

Safe. The word feels like a cruel joke. “Not exactly,” I say. “But you’re awake. That counts for something.”

His gaze flickers over each of us, then stops on Eli.

“Eli?”

“I’m here.” Eli doesn’t look away from him. “Stay with me.”

Micah closes his eyes for one breath. When he opens them, he starts testing the ropes, his face twisting with effort. “Fuck. How are we going to get out of this?”

“I was thinking we . . .” Milo starts kicking his feet, making himself swing, lifting his feet to hook around Holden’s hips.

“Shit! Fuck!” Holden grunts, wincing in pain and kicking Milo away. “What are you trying to do? Rip my fucking hands off?”

“I’m trying to link up so we can maneuver ourselves off these hooks!”

“Look at the angle of them, Milo—we’d need to slingshot ourselves at the ceiling to get the rope over them.”

“Well, I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas,” Milo snaps back, his voice sharper now, energy returning despite the situation. “Do you have something better? Or would you rather bitch at me and just hang here until Stephen comes back with a chainsaw?”

“Enough,” I hiss, teeth clenched. I look around again, desperate to find something we can use. The double doors are closed. A smaller door sits beyond a rusted tractor at the far end. I can see two ways out and can’t reach either of them.

Holden is looking at the doors too, but not the way I am. He looks at the tractor. At the straw. Back down the row of us. “Four men and a woman,” he says, mostly to himself. “Out of a rolled car, in the rain, before anybody reached it.” He doesn’t finish it.

“He had to have had help,” I mutter, trying to shift and find a little relief from the screaming stretch in my shoulders.

“Kennel,” Milo confirms. “It’s the only answer for this fuckery.”