Page 114 of Juniper Unraveling

Sucking in a breath, I push his hand away and watch his nose twitch.

He smells something.

Backing himself off of me, he abandons the attack, and I roll to the side to catch my breath.

I see the other Rager has left Red lying on the ground and tugging the shreds of her shirt to cover herself.

Anna is no longer screaming, and I crane my neck to watch the Rager who had her pinned backing away with the others. They bare their teeth, hissing, and I follow the path of their gaze toward the entrance of the cavern.

A hulking silhouette steps forward.

If I didn’t recognize it, I’d think a much bigger predator had come to stake his claim. But I know the man striding toward us, shoulders bunched, lips peeled back to a snarl, like someone pissed in his canteen.

Rhys.

Flanked at either side of him are Rigs and Scarboy, the quiet one who stood guard outside of Rhys’s room.

I catch another glimpse of the Ragers, who don’t charge toward him as he enters the cavern. They don’t attack, at all, but stand growling and clicking their teeth.

Striding across the space, Rhys comes to a stop in front of me and, without looking at me, reaches for my hand. I take it, allowing him to pull me to a stand.

“You bit?” he asks, keeping his eyes on the three Ragers anxiously pacing in the corner.

“No.”

“Just the three of them?”

“Yes.”

He looks me up and down, and for some reason, his appraisal leaves a trail of shame in its wake. No doubt, he knows what they brought us here for, and though I shouldn’t care what he thinks, I can feel the heat of embarrassment stinging my cheeks. Not for what they planned to do, but because I couldn’t stop them myself.

I cast a glare back at the Ragers, who pace in their small corner.

Intimidated.

I’ve only seen Ragers react that way one time in my whole life.

In the next breath, Rhys lurches forward, and the Rager who attacked me hisses and chatters his teeth in warning. Without hesitation or fear, Rhys accosts the mutilated male and grips his skull before he attacks. One twist and the Rager’s head snaps, dropping him to the floor. Just like that.

Two shots echo inside the cave, as Rigs takes out the other two Ragers. Within seconds, all three are eliminated. The only sounds are Anna’s sniffling and the agonized wails from the back of the cave.

“What about the woman?” Rigs asks.

“Kill her.” As Rhys’s eyes land on me, a third shot silences the pregnant Rager.

* * *

I sit bent forward with my shirt up to my shoulders, while Rhys daubs the wounds on my back. Maybe it shouldn’t have, but watching Rigs put a bullet in the female Rager has troubled me since we returned to the room.

I was fifteen when I lost a baby. One put there by a monster. I guess, in some ways, I felt sorry for her. And the baby was undoubtedly alive, moving around inside the mother’s stomach. “You could’ve … at least waited to see if the baby was uninfected. Maybe she was pregnant before she progressed. Ever think of that?” My argument is weak, though, evident in the frail tone of my voice, and based solely on my emotions.

A flare of a burn streaks across my skin, and I jerk against the rag set along my spine.

“It upset you when Rigs shot her.” It’s not a question, and I can’t tell if there’s sarcasm laced in those words.

As if he’s making fun of my feelings, or something. I feel nothing for the woman herself. I know damn well she’d have struck me down and made a meal out of me, if given the chance, but it was a sucky situation, a symptom of the world and the shitty things that happen in it.

“All of you are a bunch of heartless bastards.”