Safe.
It’s an illusion, probably. We’re fugitives now, wounded and wanted, with an army being mobilized to hunt us down.
But Nate’s arms are around me. His heartbeat is steady against my cheek. And when I look up at him—at his profile against the stars, at the man who stopped, who chose me, who tore through anyone who tried to keep us apart—I know one thing for certain.
He really is a superhero.
“Hey,” I say softly.
He looks down at me.
“Thank you.”
His smile is faint though his eyes crinkle at the corners.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he says. “We’re not out of this.”
“No.” I reach up, touch his jaw with shaking fingers. He leans into it, just slightly. “But we’re out ofthere. And I’m alive. And you’re you again.” I manage a smile, probably gruesome given the state of my face. “That’s enough for now.”
He doesn’t answer. But his arms tighten around me, and he flies us deeper into the night.
CHAPTER 45
VANGUARD
She can’t stop shaking.
Not the adrenaline tremors from before—this is different. Deeper. Her whole body vibrating against my chest as we cut through the clouds heading north, and her skin is like ice where it presses against my neck.
“Mia.” I angle us lower, beneath the cloud cover, scanning the darkness below for lights. “Talk to me.”
“C-cold,” she manages through chattering teeth. “Really f-fucking cold.”
Shit. Of course she is. We’re at ten thousand feet in November, she’s soaked in sweat and blood, and I’ve been flying her through freezing air for twenty minutes like an idiot. Just because temperature doesn’t affect me doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect her.
I need to land ASAP.
The Catskills spread beneath us, a dark carpet of forest broken by the occasional glint of water. Lakes. Summer homes. The kind of places that empty out after Labor Day and don’t fill up again until Memorial Day.
Perfect.
I find what I’m looking for on the third pass—a large summer house set back from a private lake, no lights in any window, no cars in the long gravel driveway. The nearest neighbor is at least half a mile through dense woods. I circle once, scanning for security systems. There are cameras on the porch and by the garage, the little red lights blinking steadily in the darkness.
Easy enough.
I land in the backyard, setting Mia down gently on a wooden deck that overlooks the water. She sways, nearly goes down, and I catch her elbow.
“Stay here. One minute.”
I move fast, hitting each camera with a focused burst of gravitational pressure—not enough to destroy them, just enough to fry the electronics. The blinking lights go dark one by one. Then I’m at the back door, and a gentle push is all it takes to splinter the lock.
The inside smells like dust and cedar and old books. Summer people. The kind who have a lake house and a city apartment and probably a third place in Florida for the winters. I find the thermostat and crank it up, then the circuit breaker, then back to the deck where Mia is exactly where I left her, hunched over, arms wrapped around herself.
“Come on.” I lift her again—she doesn’t protest, which worries me more than anything—and carry her inside.
I take her straight to the nearest bathroom, which is all rustic wood and expensive tile and sit Mia on the closed toilet lid and start running the shower, testing the temperature until steam starts to rise.
“Can you stand?”
