"I knew if I go too close, if I talked to you, I'd never be able to let you go."
"I don't want you to let me go."
Sawyer smiled. "I don't want to let you go either. That's why I was so afraid. I didn't want to do anything that would put you at risk, and I'm terrified I've done just that."
The mechs were still looking for him. There was no changing that. He just needed to figure out how to destroy them before they destroyed the only thing that mattered to him in this life.
"You know I can take care of myself, right?"
"I know that you are capable of fighting and that you're a crack shot. I worry that being close to me will put you in the mechs' crosshairs. If they figure out how much you mean to me, they'll hurt you to get at me."
Stefan's eyebrows lifted. "You think they are that smart?"
"I don't think they are dumb. Whether they understand love, I have no idea. I do know they are evil in ways we have no concept of." Killing so many people for their own gains was proof of that. "I also know that we're in a different game now, one we haven't faced before."
"How so?"
"Things have changed. The mechs are no longer just sucking people dry. They're taking them and experimenting on them. They're trying to change humans into mechs. I have no idea why, but I think that's an avenue that needs to be investigated. They are definitely up to something, and we need to know what it is before it's too late to do anything about it."
"Has anyone ever figured out where their home base is?"
Sawyer stiffened at the question. "No, I don't think so. Why?"
They'd always been so busy trying not to get killed to look into where the mechs might be. Anyone who went looking for their home base had to be insane.
"I've never seen one, but they have to be coming from somewhere, right? I mean, they don't just appear, suck a few of us dry, then disappear. They have to be taking all that iron back somewhere." Stefan squinted at Sawyer. "Where did you escape from?"
"I don't remember. I was dazed, half out of my mind." Sawyer really didn't like remembering that time in his life. "I think I wandered for a few days before my head cleared. I was in Kansas, just outside Wichita, when I was finally able to think clearly."
"Do you think they have a base somewhere around there?"
"In Wichita?"
Stefan shrugged.
"No, it would make more sense for them to be someplace like Oklahoma City, Dallas, or St. Louis. One of the bigger cities."
"Do you think you could have made it all the way to Wichita from Chicago?" Stefan asked. "That's a pretty big city. It would be a good place for a home base if the mechs needed to drain humans."
Unfortunately, Stefan was right. The bigger cities had drawn the mechs faster than the smaller towns. Once they had been wiped out, the mechs had been forced to sweep through the more rural areas.
"I don't know. Maybe." Sawyer dropped down on the bed next to Stefan. "I could have been held anywhere. So much of that time is one big haze."
Stefan's hand covered his before he laced their fingers together. "To be honest, as much as I'd like you to remember where you were being held so that we know where the mechs are, I'm kind of glad you don't."
Sawyer snorted. "Yeah, me, too."
Stefan turned toward him, folding one leg up on the bed and draping the other over Sawyer's thigh. "We're going to be okay. You know that, right?"
Not really.
"We've already beat them once. We can do it again."
Sawyer frowned as he glanced at Stefan. "When did we beat them?"
He was pretty sure he would have remembered it if they had.
Stefan chuckled. "They tried to take you from me, and not only did you escape them, but you came back to me. I call that a win."
