Chapter twenty-nine
Daphne
“Hewasrightthere,” Silas said, releasing me to move closer to the spot he had indicated. “I swear to fuck, he was here, out cold and looking like he’d gone ten rounds with Tyson.”
“He wasn’t here when I came back, either,” Duke mused, looking around. He had drawn his weapon again, but Silas didn’t seem to be bothered by the other man holding a gun anymore.
“Where the hell did he go, then?”
“I’d like to know that, too,” I muttered, feeling my skin crawl at the fact that Spaz was out there, unaccounted for and unpredictable. Of all the guys I had been dealing with in the last few days, he was the one I was most afraid of.
Even Davis, with his icy demeanor and angry eyes, wasn’t as terrifying as Spaz. Because while Davis might not hesitate to end my life, he would do it with swift precision and no messing around.
I knew for a fact that Spaz would be the type of man that would play with his food, and that if he were to decide he wanted to kill me, he’d very likely make it hurt first.
“Look, you need to get out of here,” Duke stressed, blowing out a breath. “Davis will be back soon, and I’d like to be gone as well.”
“You’re leaving?” I asked, surprised.
“Yeah,” Duke said, sounding saddened by the word. “I think it’s time.” He looked at me then, his eyes full of remorse. “I really am sorry. For everything.”
I stepped closer to him, feeling like he needed some sort of connection in that moment, and gently placed my hand on his arm, ignoring Silas’s growl.
“Will you go back to the city?”
“No, I think I’m done with New York.” Looking around, Duke took in the forest around us. “I’ve kind of liked the quiet out here. I wouldn’t mind finding a place where I can see trees and stuff more often, ya know?”
Thinking back to my time in Nevada, I found I could relate. Not about the trees, because those were few and far between in the desert, but about the feeling of peace that came with being out in nature, especially growing up in the heart of Manhattan like I had.
“Well, take care of yourself, Duke.”
“You too, Daphne.”
Then, with a silent nod to Silas, Duke turned and wandered away, disappearing into the woods like he was never there.
I stared after him, wondering how the heck he was going to find his way in the woods, and whether or not Davis would let him go.
He didn’t seem like the type who liked to lose.
A sudden beeping drew my attention back to the present, and I turned to see Silas staring at his phone.
“Finally,” he rasped. “A signal.” Scrolling rapidly, I watched him read whatever he found there, then punch out a quick response, before sliding the phone away and looking at me.
“Daphne,” Silas whispered, taking my hand again. “We need to go.”
And go, we did.
One agonizing step at a time, Silas and I made our way back to the edge of the forest where he collected the pack he had left there previously, then he guided me along the gravel roadway, leading farther uphill rather than down. I didn’t ask questions, content to just follow him where he was leading me, knowing that he would never intentionally put me in harms way.
Whether he knew it or not, Silas truly had become my knight.
We carried on in silence, pausing to drink from his pouch of warm water occasionally and to allow Silas a moment to rest frequently. After an hour of plodding along this way, the road we were on intersected with a path that looked like it was for hiking because there was no way a vehicle would be able to fit on it. As we approached the gate, Silas took a folded map out of his pocket, inspecting it carefully before putting it away.
“This is Dry Brooke Ridge Trail,” he said, his face tight with strain. “From here, it’s a straight line down to a parking lot and then out of these fucking woods. But first,” he said, sliding the pack off of his shoulders and easing himself to the ground in a cozy looking grassy area not far from the trail. “I need to rest just a minute.”
“Are you alright?” I could see that the gauze I had wrapped around his leg was now soaked with blood, but Silas waved away my concern.
“All good, Princess. Just need to take the weight off of it for a few.” He smirked at me. “It’s been a minute since I was stabbed.”
“Not funny.”
“Wasn’t tryin’ to be.”
As I moved to settle in the grass next to him—because I wasn’t enjoying the great outdoors any more than Silas was at the moment—I squinted at the trail, the shadows of the afternoon starting to lengthen as the sun disappeared behind the trees. It looked like a lovely hike, if that was something you were into. I hadn’t hiked in a while, and never in a place like this, but I could still see the appeal. Which had me wondering why no one else seemed to be enjoying it at the moment.
“Why are there no other hikers around?” I mused aloud.
“We noticed when we came in that someone had closed and locked all the gates.”
“We?”
“Yeah, me and a...well, friend, I guess.”
“A friend?”
“His name is Hawthorn,” Silas started, pausing to consider something before he continued. “I honestly didn’t catch his first name.”
“He’s your friend and you don’t know his name.”
“I only met him yesterday. He’s really a friend of Hack, but he was willing to help me out, so that makes him my friend now, too.”
Silas leaned back against a tree, wiping his sweaty forehead and looking like he needed a nap. I knew he wouldn’t sleep even if I told him to. Not with Davis and Spaz still on the loose somewhere, but I was glad he was taking some time to rest, even if that was all it could be for the moment.
“Thank you,” I said softly, feeling suddenly shy. “For coming for me, I mean. I wasn’t—I mean, I figured Stone would send someone, but I didn’t expect it to be you.”
Silas scowled, his brows dropping low over his eyes at my statement.
“Of course I came for you, Daphne. You should have never doubted that.”
“Well, I did,” I said, a little bitterness creeping into my voice. “I mean, it’s not like we’ve talked much lately. I didn’t know if you’d be busy with...something.” Or someone, I thought, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud.
Because as much as I hated it, I had no claim on Silas, no matter how much I thought of him as mine. And just because I had had no luck in the dating scene for the last few years didn’t necessarily mean that he had been lonely.
“I wasn’t busy,” Silas assured me, his eyes dark. “With anything.”
I could hear the meaning in his words, the assertion that there was no one waiting for him back in Las Vegas, and I couldn’t hide my smile.
“Well... good, then.”
“Good.”
We were quiet again then, both of us full of thoughts, but neither willing to voice them. I could tell by the way that Silas clenched and unclenched his jaw that he had something on his mind, and it didn’t take a genius to know it was probably me.
Truth was, I was glad he was stressed; that meant he was thinking about the hard questions. Questions like, would we live in Las Vegas or New York.
Honestly, I couldn’t wait to get back to Nevada. Just thinking about it made me feel a thousand times lighter, like there wasn’t a crazy kidnapper and his spastic sidekick looking for me somewhere in these woods.
But before I started making plans, I needed to know where Silas’s head was at.
“Si,” I started slowly, not wanting him to shut down on me. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Yeah?”