Knight:Cabin going dark. Catch you on the flip side.
The app drops back into offline mode. The signal light on the little modem goes dark.
Just like that, we’re alone again.
I sit there a second, staring at the black screen.
Dean’s confidence helps.
Gage’s trust hurts.
Arrow and Ozzy’s teasing feels like a lifeline to normalcy we don’t get to touch right now.
I shove the box back into its place, coil the antenna down, and kill the last of the boot power.
The cabin feels even quieter now.
A floorboard creaks behind me.
I turn.
Lark stands at the edge of the hall, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.
Her hair is a disaster—half falling out of a messy bun, flattened on one side. She’s drowning in one of the cabin’s oversized t-shirts she must’ve dug out of the dresser, hem hitting the top of her thighs, sleeves dangling past her elbows.
She looks soft and sleepy andcompletely unawareof the landmine field that is my self-control.
“Morning, Birdie,” I say.
She squints at me. “Morning, Control Freak.”
Her voice is rough from sleep, lower, somehow more intimate. She pads barefoot into the room and stretches, arms overhead, shirt lifting enough for a teasing glimpse of the curve of her hip.
Something in my chest does that now-familiar lurch.
“Any news?” she asks, nodding toward the tablet.
“Arrow checked in. Dean’s working on cracking whoever posted the bounty. They’re going after Cathedral’s infrastructure, seeing if they can find the handler. We’re still dark until further notice.”
She scrunches her nose. “Define further.”
“If we’re lucky? Days.”
“And if we’re not?”
“Longer.”
She groans and flops onto the couch where I was just sitting, hair flying. “You’re telling me I have to survive out here with no internet, no phone, and just your grumpy face for entertainment?”
“You forgot my winning personality.”
She snorts. “That assumed you had one.”
I grab the blanket that slid off the couch and toss it at her. It lands over her head. She makes a muffled noise of protest, then pops her face out, hair now even worse.
Adorable.
Dangerous.
