❝I don't do regrets. Regrets are pointless. It's too late for regrets. You've already done it, haven't you? No point wishing you could change it.❞
Elissa Bardot-Gray was never the one to be classified as a "rule breaker". She had a high-rankin...
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THEY'D FOUND HIM.
Strung up in a tree on the far side of the clearing, arms bound tightly above his head. Chest bare and glistening with sweat. A red streak ran down his chest and she swallowed harshly—knowing—without a doubt, that it was blood. It had trickled down from the side of his neck, the wound open and raw.
When he let out a low, pained moan and his head shifted slightly, she heard the gasp of relief from behind her and couldn't resist giving a sign of her own.
They'd found him. And he was alive.
But if they didn't hurry, he wouldn't be for much longer. The steady blood flow wasn't a good sign.
"We need to get him down," she mumbled back to the others, taking a step forward. She begun her trek across the clearing—treading cautiously—yet with determination, through the long grass. Her footsteps made no sound on the foliage below.
Reaching the base of the tree, she realized that he was strung up a lot higher than she'd thought, his knees at eye level. They would need to climb up the tree to get him down. Her heart seized up painfully when he gave another pained moan. Reaching up, she rested her hand on his shin comfortingly.
"We're here, don't worry—we're going to get you down," she told him softly, before beginning to address the others. "Come on, we've got to—" but the words died on her lips as she turned around.
There was no one there.
Heart suddenly pounding in her chest, she wildly looked around for sign of everyone else, knowing that they had to be there—they'd been there only seconds before. But the clearing was empty. There was no sound, no sign that anyone had been with her at all.
Taking a shaky breath, she turned back around to look up at Jasper. She reached out for his pant leg, knowing that she needed to get him down—even without the help of the others—but her hand froze as she stared up at him.
It wasn't Jasper.
The skin tone was wrong. The hair was wrong. The curve of his nose, the furrow of his eyebrows, his cheeks, his chin...
It was all wrong.
"Jupiter?" The name escaper her like a breath. It's meaning terrifying her.
No, no, no.
He shouldn't be here. He couldn't be here. He was still on the Ark. A thousand miles away.
He couldn't be here.
Shaking her head, she stumbled back, away from the tree, staring at him in disbelief. Her breaths coming out in shallow rasps.
