Page 74 of The Wild Man

Falling in love and realizing I didn’t want to live in a world if Wild Man wasn’t in it.

The night I was taken from him.

His roars piercing the night as my dad and brothers beat him.

My eyes flash open. My hands are covering my face and when I pull them back, my gaze is caught by my wrists. The woven bracelets. They’re gone.

“Where are they?”

Tears prick my eyes when I look at Dad. He looks haggard, like he’s aged twenty years since I saw him before I left to find Wild Man.

“What?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

“My bracelets.” I rub the skin around my wrist. “Where are they?”

I hear a scraping and look over at Mad as he opens my bedside drawer. He pulls out three familiar bracelets and holds them up with a finger. “These?”

I lean over, uncaring that the move brings on another wave of dizziness and pain, and snatch them from him. Some of the weight that’s gathered on my chest eases when I slip them over my wrist.

My throat closes, and I turn my eyes to Dad. I’m so fucking scared to voice the question that’s pounding through my head. The answer is either going to kill me or save me. Tears prick my eyes, and I let them fall.

“Is he dead?” My voice is raw and filled with so much profound heartache.

“God fucking willing,” Ethan mutters from across the room.

I ignore him and keep my gaze trained on Dad, waiting for his response with my heart firmly lodged in my throat.

The line of his jaw twitches and something that looks like hatred enters his expression. “He wasn’t when we left him, but he probably is now. If not from his injuries then the wild animals probably got to him. Either way works fine for me.”

A sob escapes before I can stop it and tears flood down my cheeks. My lungs feel like they’re being constricted by an imaginary fist and if it weren’t for the pounding in my ears, I’d swear my heart actually stopped beating.

“No,” I moan, refusing to believe even the possibility that Wild Man is dead. He can’t be. He promised me that he would always protect me. That nothing would ever hurt me. But I’m hurting now. I’m hurting so much that I know I’ll never recover. My heart, my life, my very soul will never be the same. I need him to take away that hurt.

“Ever,” Dad says, reaching for me. “Everything will?—”

I don’t let him finish. I knock his hand away and start throwing back the covers. I don’t hate Dad or my brothers for what they’ve done. They didn’t know that I fell in love with my captor and essentially destroyed my heart when they beat him to death. Or beat him so badly he couldn’t defend himself against the predators who roam the forest. All they knew was that I was missing. Had no clue what had happened to me. My family loves me and I love them for searching for me.

I don’t hate them, but I can’t look at them right now. I don’t want to see their faces and the damage that Wild Man inflicted on them before they took him down. I can’t look them in the eyes and not break down, knowing that, because of them, I’ll never be whole again.

“What in the fuck are you doing, Everlee?” Dad asks when I slide my feet to the floor and try to get up from the bed. I’m forced to close my eyes when the room starts to sway.

“I’m going back out there,” I say. I open my lids, grateful when the room stays where it’s supposed to. “I have to find him.”

If there’s a slim chance he might still be alive, I have to go to him. Even if he’s not—I press my lips together when they start to wobble—I need to find him before the animals get to him. He deserves to be buried and not eaten by wild animals.

“Like hell you are,” Dad growls, getting up from the chair.

I press my hands against the mattress, intent on getting to my feet so I can dress. Before I can though, Dad is in front of me, pushing me down by my shoulders.

“You aren’t going, Ever,” he says, using his firm dad voice. “Your ass is staying in bed where it belongs. You have a fucking head injury for fuck’s sake.”

I tip my head back, straightening my spine, and meet his gaze. “I’m going.”

“Why? Why in the hell would you want to go back out there? We just rescued you.”

“Because I love him.” I give him the truth.

Dad has a temper, but he doesn’t show it often. You always know when he’s about to lose it when the veins in his forehead start poking out. Like they are right now. I get his anger. For weeks he’s worried about his daughter, not knowing what happened to her. If she were alive, dead, or suffering.