?Chapter 2856:


    “Up!”


    “Ugh… ah!”


    With a strained heave, Eric leaned into her support. Inch by inch, painfully, his body shifted upright. The movement nearly dragged her off bnce, but she dug her heels in and held firm.


    “Eric!” she gasped, tightening her grip to steady him.


    Her hands slid instinctively up his back—and then she felt it.


    Cold. Hard. Wrong.


    “What is this?” she asked, her voice turning sharp with rm.


    “Eric, are you sitting properly?” Hadley asked.


    “Yeah.” Eric nodded, his voice steady but strained.


    “I’m fine. It just hurts like hell—moving is the problem.” He nced at her, baffled.


    “What is it?”


    Whatever it was had lodged in his back, out of sight and beyond his reach.


    “Let me take a look…” Hadley stepped behind him, her eyes narrowing as she examined the wound.


    Her brows drew together.


    “It’s… metal. It looks like a mp, with teeth…”


    She’d never seen anything like it and struggled to describe it.


    “Hold on.” She pulled out her phone, snapped a quick photo, then handed it to him.


    “Here. Look.”


    Eric studied the image, his lips tightening.


    “It’s a hunting trap.”


    Hadley’s memory jolted.


    “Yes… that’s it!”


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    When she was younger, in her grandmother’s vige in Dresse Town, they used traps like that in the hills—set for wild boars and rabbits.


    Now that she recognized it, her frown deepened.


    “We need to get it off you, don’t we?”


    “Forget it.” Eric shook his head.


    “Leave it for now.”


    “Leave it?” Hadley stared at him, incredulous.


    “You can’t just sit there with that thing stuck in you!”


    She didn’t know the exact mechanism, but she could tell it hadn’t fully mped shut yet.


    “Eric,” she pressed, her voice tight with urgency.


    “Is it still tightening? Still digging in?”


    “You know how these work?” Eric looked at her with faint surprise, then gave a slow nod.


    “Yeah… that’s exactly what it’s doing.”


    “Then we have to figure out how to open it!”


    She was right. But Eric only looked at her, silent.


    Who was going to open it? He couldn’t reach it himself. Hadley… didn’t know how.


    A heavy silence settled over her as the realization sank in.


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