“I finally get you,” he says, “and the first real date I take you on is going to be to the grocery store because we’ll have no food and three weeks’ worth of laundry.”
I huff a sleepy laugh.
“That sounds perfect,” I say. “As long as you’re there.”
He kisses the top of my head.
“I will be,” he says quietly. “That’s the whole point.”
I fall asleep tangled up in him, smelling like smoke and sweat and something new.
Something like a future.
If we survive this—when we survive this—we’re going home as anus.
And for the first time since this whole nightmare started, that thought doesn’t scare me more than the hitmen.
It feels like the best thing I’ve ever decided.
SEVENTEEN
CRASH
KNIGHT
The fire has burned down to embers and my neck is going to hate me tomorrow.
Lark is half on top of me, blanket tangled around our legs, her breath a soft, warm puff against my throat. The cabin smells like smoke and her shampoo and the faint citrus detergent from the sheets. It’s quiet in that heavy, late-night way, the kind that makes you forget the rest of the world exists.
For a second, surfacing from sleep, I let myself believe it.
Just a cabin.
Just a girl.
No bounties. No mobs. No Luka.
Then somethingslamsagainst the side of the cabin.
The sound yanks me all the way awake.
Wood splinters. Glass shatters. A second later, the faint jingle of the fishing-line can alarm at the back window snaps under the crash.
Every nerve in my body goes live.
I’m moving before I’m fully conscious, adrenaline punching through the last of the fog.
“Lark,” I snap, already rolling us. “Wake up. Move.”
She jerks, blinking, hand fisting in my t-shirt. “Wh?—?”
Another crash. The rear window this time. The sound of boots hitting floorboards.
They’reinside.
“Up,” I bark, shoving her toward the low couch. “Couch. Down. Now.”
She doesn’t argue.
