Chapter 1272
In the distance, the hunt in the forest was still raging.
It was too far away to hear any screams, but the roars of wild beasts echoed through the trees.
Tarquin glanced down at the numbers glowing on his wristband.
Over fifty illegal poachers had slipped into these woods-now, more than half of them were dead.
Only twenty-two left.
Not a flicker of surprise or sympathy crossed Tarquin’s face.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, he thought. They brought this on themselves.
He tapped his wristband, switching to the navigation screen, and started trekking toward the lodge. There were still a few dozen poachers back at the house waiting to be dealt with.
The forest was wild and thick. No trails, just tangled roots and brambles everywhere.
Lucky for him, Tarquin was no stranger to the wilderness. With his digital map guiding him, he found the old cabins soon enough.
The elders’ cabins were a circle of eight wooden lodges, each one snug against the next.
All two-story, all built from sturdy oak, all practically identical.
Six of the elders had a place of their own. Elysia and the kids shared another. The last was a communal storeroom, stacked with supplies and food-canned beans, jerky, crackers, peanut butter, and all sorts of homey essentials.
No towering fences here, just a waist-high picket fence strung with twinkling fairy lights. The glow was soft, not too bright, but magical all the same.
They blinked and shimmered like tiny fireflies, wrapping the cabins in a gentle halo.
In the heart of the deep woods, the sight gave Tarquin a sense of warmth he couldn’t quite describe.
Just thinking of Elysia and the kids inside made his expression soften.
He strode forward, ready to see them again—
Suddenly-
Tarquin’s brow creased. He stopped dead, frozen mid-step.
No mistaking it: he’d just stepped on a landmine.
One wrong move and he’d be blown to bits. Just great.
Frowning, Tarquin tried to figure out why there’d be a bomb buried so close to the cabins. The elders were all legends in their own right-ho way they’d let anything so dangerous get this close to home.
Unless… someone had just planted it. Waiting for him to step on it.
A thought struck him. His eyes darted toward the cabins, his expression unreadable.
It was quiet. Too quiet. He stood there, one foot pressing down on the hidden explosive, not daring to move.
He wasn’t scared-just a little exasperated.
After what felt like forever (and a very numb leg), he finally spotted two elders strolling his way.
One wore a crisp white tracksuit; the other, a sharp dark blazer.
Both had a certain air about them-men you didn’t mess with.
“That him?” one asked, gaze sharp.
“No doubt about it,” the other replied.
Tarquin already knew who they were. He called out, “Hey Quincy. Hey Walter p>
He’d figured it out the second he triggered the mine. Walter was a notorious tinkerer-loved inventing weapons and traps.
Gerald and Howard were out of the woods at the moment, and he’d already met Bernard, so these two had to be Quincy and Walter.
The elders eyed him up and down, like they were sizing up a prize pig at the county fair.
“Handsome enough, I suppose,” Quincy muttered.
“Too bad he’s the one who put our Elysia through hell,” Walter snapped.
Tarquin couldn’t argue with that.
The elders treated Elysia like a granddaughter. No way were they cutting him any slack.
They loved Elysia to bits—and hated him just as much.
Didn’t matter why things happened
the way they did; Tarquin
y things hap
the
Elysia
root of all the danger and pain and the kids had suffered.
From Grandma’s frosty threats, to Bernard’s not-so-friendly slap, and now this “welcome” from Quincy and Walter-a landmine, just to make sure he knew his place.