The girl stared at the ground, shoulders slumped and legs kicking listlessly.She looked like a lost, scared, twelve-year-old kid.
Because that’s exactly what she was.
Adam’s heart wrenched in his chest.
He risked everything by being here now, even though the steady rush of the waterfall at the end of the gorge would drown out their words to anyone who might actually understand them.
He decided he didn’t care.He should’ve done this sooner, and to hell with the consequences.
“Hey,” he said.
Vanika’s head jerked up.Her eyes flared with recognition—and a mingled twist of hurt and fury.
The hurt gutted Adam most.
“Mind if I join you?”he asked.
“Yes,” Vanika retorted.
Adam sat down next to her anyway.
Vanika scooted as far away as she could.
Adam let her.For the first time since he had come to this damned forest, he didn’t feel like he was second-guessing himself, wondering how he was going to get it wrong.
“I owe you an apology,” Adam confessed.“I thought if I pretended to be on Borthwick’s side, I’d be able to keep you safe.Pretty sure that was the wrong move.”
Vanika glared at him, cautious and defensive.“Pretending to be on his side wasmyidea.”
“It was a good one.Might’ve even worked.But there’s a guy here who can always tell when someone’s lying.I’m not gonna tell you who,” Adam warned as she opened her mouth to ask.“I don’t want to catch his attention at the moment.”
Vanika huffed with disapproval.“Why are you telling me all of this now?”
Adam studied the organized detachments of sepoys moving out to search the nearby caves.“Because I’m pretty sure things are about to go to hell around here, and I need to make sure you know we’re still on the same side.”
Vanika’s eyes shimmered with angry tears.“You were going to let him whip me.”
Adam forced himself not to flinch.“I wanted to take him down just for threatening it, but I thought it would be safer if I could find another way to stop him.I would not have let him hurt you.”
A tear carved a path over her cheek.Vanika dashed it away with a quick, defensive flick of her hand.
“I’m sorry for it—for all of it.”Adam made the words a plea.“But I’m going to get you out of here.Just as soon as I come up with a plan.”
“As soon asyoucome up with a plan?”Vanika countered tartly.“What makes you think that I don’t already have one?”
Adam cocked an eyebrow.“Do you?”
He watched a rapid calculation take place behind the girl’s sharp features as she studied the shape of the landscape and the relative positions of the soldiers.
Her gaze dropped to Adam’s belt, and Vanika lifted her chin defiantly.“I need your enormous knife—and a distraction.”
Adam’s hand reflexively dropped to the hilt of his machete.“My knife.And a distraction.”
“A good one,” Vanika pushed back.
He could read the challenge in her eyes.This was a test—his chance to prove that he meant what he had said.“If I do that, will you promise me you’ll get out of here?”
“No,” Vanika retorted.“I’m going to free the Adrija.”
