Alone, I jumped off the bed and rushed through to my own bathroom.
Because no matter how much a part of me wanted to cling to his words, to believe he meant them, the larger part of me was terrified.
That he meant them.
That maybe I could feel the same way.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Colter
I expected the distance she kept from me after I came back from dealing with the condom to find the bed empty.
She was new to, well, feelings.
In general.
Let alone ones that had to do with another person.
She needed to try to get away from them.
She hadn’t realized yet that there was no outrunning them.
I would simply be there waiting when she did.
Even if I didn’t love how she purposely kept either Saint or Syn between us like human shields.
Or how she volunteered to help Syn put a better camera up, since the footage we’d gotten from the night before had been grainy as fuck.
Saint had spent the afternoon while I was in bed with Dylan finding a store with a better selection of cameras.
“Think the current teams might be best,” Saint said when I didn’t object right away.
“Why?”
“Because Syn and I know each other best. And you and Colter know each other better. It’s not a good idea to fuck with the dynamic.”
Then, before she could object, he took off with his brother in tow.
“It was a valiant try,” I said, shooting her a smirk.
“Don’t gloat,” she said, backhanding me lightly across the chest. “Was the footage really that bad?” she asked.
“Everyone kind of looked like ghosts. The night vision made them all lose any clear features.”
“That sucks. Did you make anyone out?”
“Rook was able to identify Roach since we already had pictures of him to compare to. He was working on trying to improve the pictures, but he didn’t sound hopeful. We did get a frustratingly clear video of someone pissing against a tree. But other than that, it was all garbage.”
“Maybe we should have tried out the new cameras before we came back out here.”
“It’s not a waste. Hopefully, we can see some of the guys with our own eyes.”
We fell silent for a while then, just listening to the wind and crickets, both lost in our own thoughts.
Until, eventually, two of the men moved outside.
We weren’t close enough to hear what they were saying, but their body language was doing a lot of talking.
