Moral Compass

Chapter Eleven

Don't bite the hand that feeds for golden clasps may bind yours.

Well the golden binds made sense now too. Out of the temple's main chamber, he inspected his new bangles. They didn't touch his skin, and he couldn't touch them, but he could see them. Bright and practically glowing.

There was much less conversation on the way out of the temple than there had been on the way in.

He kept his steady gaze on the Amazon, waiting for her to turn around and say something. But she didn't. He received no reassurance. No words of comfort. Not even a conclusive statement. Instead, she just walked. And walked. And walked.

When she started walking down those never-ending steps and still didn't say anything, he knew he had a problem.

Her behaviour had done a complete 360. Where before she'd call for him to keep up, she no longer seemed to care.

Understanding dawned when he realised her job here was done. Fallon was the delivery service. The package had been delivered. This train didn't offer open return.

"So this is it?" He demanded, muscly arms flailing around him. These steps had him towering over her more than usual, but it felt like her looking down on him.

"You've done your job so now you don't care what happens to me?"

She nodded and pursed her lips. "That sounds about right."

"Wrong answer."

With that warpaint and those braids, not to mention that bad attitude, she looked like the ruthless, detached bitch she'd set out to be.

Seth wouldn't stand for it.

"You really want to argue this with me?" She cracked her knuckles. "Are you sure that's wise?"

He wasn't scared of her fists. Even if he should've been.

"I'm not even sure what wise means. You can't just leave me here."

"You're not my problem anymore. You've been judged. End of story. I have a list to get back to."

"So you're leaving me?"

"I'm not leaving you." For now. It was obvious from the way she spoke. From the way she stood. From her flippancy to the matter. "I'll offer you the same help I offer to everyone else at this point. I'll get you back to the same place I took you from. From there on, you're on your own."

"You're taking me back?"

Why did that sting so weirdly? He should've been jumping for joy. He'd hated his time in the jungle. The threat of wild animals. The heat. The mud. The sweat.

He wanted to go back to his life more than anything—yet something about her statement rubbed him up wrong.

She shrugged anyway as if this meant nothing. And to her, that was exactly what this meant.

"That's what I said."

Her imminent imprisonment wasn't etched into the sand of an hourglass.

"Sorry, I'm just confused. It looks like you're running away from where I'm standing."

"I'm a busy person, tracker. I'm under no obligation to take people like you back, but I do it anyway out of the kindness of my heart." People like him. Delinquents. Do good-er Fallon doesn't approve. "But there aren't the same luxuries on this end of the journey as there were in the beginning."

"You call that luxurious?" Had she lost her damn mind? "Luxury is a bubble bath that I didn't have to run with a glass of wine I didn't have to pour. This journey has not been luxurious."