Page 50 of Rest In Knotty Pieces

He breaks free of me and disappears.

“Pix! Damnit!”

I rush after the couple. Pix is already there, silently moving in a way I’ve never seen him move. I can’t deny that seeing him so confidently, so easily stalking them is unbearably hot.

I glare at him as I edge closer.

Pix opens the guy’s bag and steals what looks like a wallet. He disappears into the trees, and I rush in that direction, trying to find him.

He’s waiting for me, holding out a wallet. When I take it off him, I recognise it as police issue.

My blood turns to ice as I open it and find Special Agent Mariposa’s credentials.

“What’s wrong, Rose?”

“Interesting thing. I know Kathy Mariposa quite well, and this is not her.”

“Oh, really, well then. The question is who are they here for?” Pix whispers. “You, me, her, or them. Maybe all of us?”

I ignore him and rush after the couple, following at a distance. There are a few options for who they are after, but there are only two that concern me.

I need to find out which of the two it is.

Their car is hidden a couple of hundred feet off the property, but they don’t go to it, they go into the forest to a tent that’s set up.

I crouch and watch them long into the night. When they are asleep, I creep into their camp, steal their keys, then backtrack to the car and meticulously search it. The information packet is hidden in the seat. I pull the flash drive out, and use my torch to examine the two photos.

One of them is me.

Looks like they have finally caught up with me. I press my lips together, wondering what to do next.

I pocket the information and put everything back the way I found it before I go back to the camp. It takes me five minutes to put the keys back where I found them. Then I retreat to the tree line, chewing my lip and wondering what to do.

“Did you find what you needed?”

I hesitate before I hand the photo that isn’t of me to Pix. Instead, the horrific and traumatised blurry image of Merle stares out of it.

He shines a pen torch down on the photo, his lips press together.

“So, we’re not going to do anything?” he queries.

“There’s nothing to do. They won’t find us. They will leave.”

“They are after an omega who has been traumatised and is hiding. They aren’t going anywhere, Roseland, come on.”

I press my lips together, feeling sick. “If they go missing, we’ll bring down more; the forest will be flooded with people hunting her.”

That makes him stop. His dark eyes consider me in a way that makes me feel so very exposed.

I used to have conviction in right and wrong, now I have a stubborn resolve to hang on to this one reason for living. Keeping them safe.

Am I really sitting here discussing murder? Yes, to keep her safe. Yes, absolutely.

I look down at the photo that I can’t see in the dark.

Pix skates close to me, so close I can feel the heat of him pressed against my chest.

“You’re going to need to choose a side soon, Rosey. You can’t keep riding this crooked line of right and wrong. And you keep telling me the world is black and white, but there are a million shades of every colour in between. Be careful you don’t lose it all while you’re fighting to hold the line.”