“And I’m assuming the same as you, nothing.”
“That would be the same as me.” He shifted his attention back to me when my stomach growled again. He rested his hand over mine. “Let’s get out of here.”
When our fingers intertwined, I squeezed his hand before releasing it and nudging Mouse between us. We only made it a few feet before Ryker stopped.
He waved a hand at my legs. “What happened?”
My limp had improved as my legs healed, but he’d still noticed it.
“Black dogs.”
He knelt to take a closer look at my calves. His face darkened when he saw the healing remnants of my tattered skin. He lifted a shredded piece of pant leg before letting it settle into place again.
“I’m alive, and that’s what matters,” I told him.
He stared at my injured legs before rising. A muscle twitched in his jaw when his steely eyes met mine.
“It never should have happened,” he said.
“You can’t always be with me, and I know the risks of the Revenant Woods. This”—I waved a hand around the tunnel— “is new, but I’m adapting. I want to find a way out, though.”
Mouse nodded.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
Ryker
I castsurreptitious glances at Ellery as we traveled up and down, around bends, and deeper into the tunnel. The wounds on her calves must have healed as she’d stopped limping, but it wasn’t easy to tell since she wouldn’t stop to let me look at it.
My lightning had also illuminated the dried blood on the back of her head and her matted hair. She’d told me that the injury had come from the trees.
I could have lost her to those dogs or the trees, and while she was feisty, stubborn, and sometimes reckless, she wasn’t inherently angry, meaning she would have returned as a ghost. If that happened, I would have seen her floating in the woods, but she never would have interacted with me again.
The idea of Ellery drifting by me like I didn’t exist created a sharp pang in my heart. That would have been a worse hell than anything my father or the ophidians did to me.
When I took her hand and squeezed it, she smiled at me over the top of Mouse’s head. “I really am okay.”
“You could have died.”
“We could all die every day; it’s what we choose to do with our days that matters.”
“When did you become so philosophical?”
“When I almost died.”
Despite the gravity of our conversation, I chuckled. Leave it to Ellery to make me laugh while dirt surrounded us and we had no idea where we were.
“We haven’t seen tree roots in a while,” she remarked.
No, we hadn’t… at least not the ones that moved. Some tree roots still poked through the dirt and rocks here and there, but they weren’t the same as the ones that dragged us down here, slid through the walls, and crept over our heads.
“Did you try going the other way in the tunnel?” Ellery asked.
“No. I found your arrow almost immediately and followed it to you.”
She bit her bottom lip as Mouse glanced between us. “Maybe we should have gone that way. I feel like we’ve been walking for hours and not getting anywhere.”
“It’s been a while, but you’re injured and hungry, which makes things worse. It’s probably only been an hour.”
