His mouth pressed into a thin line.
“Jeremy,” I pleaded, the fight in my body turning frantic. “If you know something—if you’ve seen something—you have to tell me. Is he hurt? Is he alive? Is he?—”
“Stop.” His voice cut clean through my spiral. “There are things I can’t tell you.”
“No. No, you don’t get to do that.” I jerked against his hold until my muscles screamed. “You don’t get to stand here and talk about ‘the game’ like it’s some rulebook and then tell me there are things you can’t say. That’s Max. That’s my…” The word caught in my throat, choking me. “That’s Max.”
His eyes flicked away again, for just a second.
“All I can tell you,” he said carefully, “is that he’s in too deep. And if you go after him, you’ll be pulled in with him. And then we lose you both.”
“Then lose us both,” I shot back, instantly. The thought didn’t even have to form. It was just there. Solid. True. “I don’t care. I don’t want to live without him. Do you get that? I don’t want to live if he’s still in there.”
His hands tightened on my arms like he could physically hold that sentence back.
“That’s not your call to make,” he said.
“The hell it isn’t.”
“Mackenzie.” My name sounded like a warning now. “This isn’t just about you. Or him.”
“Then who the hell is it about?” I demanded. “Your case?Your fucking operation? Is that it? Is he just evidence now? A piece on your board?”
His face went still, the muscle in his jaw ticking.
“There’s more going on than you know,” he said finally. “More than I’m allowed to say. If I tell you, I put you in more danger than you already are, and you are already—” He broke off, biting the words back.
“I don’t care about danger,” I hissed. “I care about Max.”
“I know.” His voice softened for a fraction of a second. “That’s why I can’t let you go back to him.”
I stared at him, chest heaving, everything inside me shaking apart. My mind raced, clawing for an angle, a weakness in his grip, a lie in his eyes, any way to get past him and into the dark where Max was.
“Let me go,” I whispered. Then louder. “Let me go. Please. Jeremy, please. I’m begging you. I can’t just leave him there. I can’t.”
His answer was final, brutal in its certainty.
“You’re not going back to Max,” he said. “Not tonight. Not like this. Not at all, if I can help it.”
The words hit like a physical blow. The world dimmed around the edges, sound rushing back in a distorted roar. My body sagged against him even as my mind clawed and clawed, searching for a way to undo what he’d just said.
“When can I see him?” I rasped automatically. My thoughts raced in circles. I needed to figure out how to enter the game with Max.
Jeremy didn’t flinch, didn’t loosen his hold.
“I don’t know. They don’t tell us. If Max survives, he’ll come for you.”
I stopped breathing.
He’d said too much. I saw it in the way his eyes shuttered, the way his mouth snapped shut.
There was more. So much more. And he wasn’t going to tell me.
Fine.
If he wouldn’t take me to Max, I’d find my own way back to him.
Jeremy half-dragged,half-guided me toward the gravel road. Someone’s SUV idled there, headlights cutting through the trees like interrogation lamps. Red and blue strobes from a distant cruiser painted the cabins.
