Chapter 3

Had we ever been a team? Or had we always, always been playing for opposite sides?

"I trusted you," I repeated. "And, all this time, you"ve been hoping to draw in the bad guys?"

Noah"s shoulders slumped a little. "We should keep moving. We can talk about this when we know more about the landscape."

"I"m not hiking one more step until I get a better answer."

He sighed. "Slate, I"m not sure I have a better answer."

"I"ve noticed." My right fist balled of its own accord. I didn"t raise it, but I did step in closer.

This time, Noah didn"t step back. He stood unflinching as I got right in his face. If anything, he looked calm and even pleased. As if he welcomed this moment of confrontation.

The slumped shoulders had gone away, and the folded arms had unfolded. His hands hung loose and open at his sides.

His only defense was his direct gaze.

Damn him for knowing it was enough.

This close, eye to eye, toes almost touching, he met my gaze and refused to blink. It wasn"t defiance looking back at me now. It was openness.

I forced my fist to unclench as I gazed hard into his waiting eyes. "Who"s keeping us here, Noah? Isn"t it time you told me?"

"I have no way of knowing that." No eyeblink away. No light flush at cheek or neck.

He was either telling the truth, or he was a world-class liar who was wasting himself all these miles away from the poker circuit.

"You know stuff," I said. "You knew we were being held in a short-term rental but we weren"t being filmed for a porno."

"I knew we weren"t being filmed because I did the same search you did when they first dropped me here." There was no quiver of stress in his voice. "If I"d been here longer, I would have searched the forest. But I didn"t have time to explore before they brought you in. This situation is as strange to me as it is to you."

"Were the other places like this?"

He snorted. "Not hardly."

Had he been hurt? Tortured? Turned?

"They were lockups," he said. "A cot, a spigot, and a bucket."

My heart twisted. I hated to think of him being held in those conditions. If he had betrayed me, he"d had his reasons. He was a captive too—had been a captive much longer.

"I"m happy to answer any and all of your questions," he said gently. "But we really should keep moving. Nobody"s helped if we just stand here waiting to be bagged like out-of-season ducks."

Don"t be distracted by beautiful eyes and an honest face. Don"t be distracted by a sudden pulse of compassion.

Firming my mouth into a stern frown, I said, "Don"t play me, Noah, because I won"t be played."

"I"m not playing you."

"Tell me what you"re walking me into. I need to know."

He didn"t back down. He only spread his open palms a little further from his body. A gesture of surrender.

"I swear to you, Slate. I"m not walking you into anything. You don"t have to believe me. Believe the logic." His eyes glowed with fierce intensity. "If we"re on an island, we"ll need a boat. If we"re not on an island, we can hike out. Either way, we need to make a circuit of the place, figure out what we"re dealing with."

"You"re walking me to beach level. That"s what you"re saying."

"I am. Whatever you think of me, we need to get down to the water. That"s the logical thing to do. We need information. We"re not going to get it standing here fighting each other." His smile was wobbly. "There could already be a boat hidden down there somewhere already."

With that, he turned around and began to walk on.

Bad move, Noah. What"s more rage-inducing than turning your back on a guy?

Or was it such a bad move? Instead of rage, I felt only resignation. Standing here wouldn"t get us home.

I watched him hike away at a pace chosen to invite me to follow—not give chase.

He was stepping slowly and carefully—as slowly as he"d stepped when we were first getting used to barefoot hiking.

The only reason he moved so slowly now to was to make it clear he wasn"t trying to escape. He wanted me to catch up.

"I should kick your ass," I said as I fell in behind him. Where was my God-given instinct to tackle and slam him to the ground?