A shiver tracked through me.
Maddox stared at me like he was taking my measure. His intense brown eyes held something I couldn’t read. Not quite hostility, but not acceptance either.
“Problem?” I lifted one eyebrow.
He shrugged. “Just wondering how long you’ll keep us alive.”
The words stung because they echoed my own fears. “As long as I can.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s honest.”
His stare dropped to my wounded arm and lingered a moment too long. Then he turned away as if this challenge meant nothing. Maybe he hated taking orders from me. Or maybe it was the fact that he knew he might not have done any better if he was in command.
Bryson cleared his throat. “Get some rest. Dawn will come fast.”
As everyone began settling into sleeping positions against the trunk, I realized how exposed we still were. Yes, we were high up, but things could climb. Things could fly.
Derren pulled Lexie close for warmth, her back against his chest. They murmured quietly to each other, their voices too low to hear.
Jaxon leaned against a forked branch near Kerralyn, near enough to talk but not touching, fiddling with his bracelet.
“That’s nice,” Kerralyn said, tapping it with her pencil.
“My grandmother gave it to me. She died when I was small. It was much too big back then, but it fits now.”
“It’s lovely,” she said. “She made it herself, right?”
He nodded.
Maddox perched on a lower limb, glaring up at them.
The jungle settled into the night. One by one, the others drifted to sleep, exhausted. While they were snoring, twitching, and mumbling, I ran my fingers over the herbal pouch.
Why did I want the person who’d given it to me to behim?
I’d barely drifted off when Bryson nudged me awake. Taking his stick, I climbed to a higher branch, positioning myself where I could see approaches from multiple directions. A few bees buzzed around me before drifting away.
The moon had risen, adding nicely to the visibility, outlining the jungle canopy stretching endlessly in all directions.
Watching over sleeping people gave me a strange sense of closeness. Lexie curled against Derren like a cat, mumbling in her sleep. Kerralyn’s head had tipped back against a tree limb, and she somehow managed to keep her journal clutched to her chest. Jaxon looked younger without the nervous tension he carried while awake. He’d wrapped his hand around his leather bracelet.
When I felt enough time had passed, I woke Derren. He startled, then nodded, fully alert within seconds.
I returned to my original spot and tried to sleep. My mind wouldn’t stop racing from one thought to another. Every crack of a branch or splash of something smacking into water in the distance made me tense.
I dozed, stirring only enough to confirm things were quiet before sinking back into uneasy sleep.
The jungle gradually lightened around us. Dawn filtered through the canopy in shafts of green-gold light, and the night sounds gave way to morning calls. Birds, the chatter of insects, a high-pitched, whining buzz, and the drip of water from leaves. At least the rain had stopped. It slickened the branches.
I drifted into a dream of Trew. This time he wasn’t glowering. His heady smile showed how amused he was by something I’d said.
My body softened, and I?—
A scream split the morning air, and I bolted upright, staring around with my heart bulging against the back of my throat.
Something crashed through the branches, ripping leaves and bark, tumbling down with sharp cracks and terrible smacks until it hit the ground far below with a sickening thud.
