Shit.
I keep my voice low, speaking near her temple when I say, “First of all, don’t change the subject. Second of all, don’t change the fucking subject. Third of all, we both know you’re not going to answer their questions.”
“But you knew I would answer yours?”
“I don’t know anything about you,” I say, my cheek accidentally grazing hers. “I don’t—”
The touch of her arrests me, words dying in my throat. Her skin is so soft it does something dangerous to my nervous system; gives my imagination too much ammo.
It occurs to me, in a moment of panic, that I’m not really in control of this situation.
“They pushed you out, didn’t they?” she says. “You’re not supposed to be here right now, are you?”
“Stop deflecting,” I say, desperately trying to pivot. “I want to know the purpose of your mission here. I want to know what’s in that vial—”
“What did you do?” she says, her voice sharpening.
“Rosabelle—”
“Did you try to defend me?” she says, and now she sounds alarmed. “Are they going to hurt you if they find you here?”
I finally lose my patience.
I flip her around instinctively, backing her into a corner blocked by an air compressor and a hydraulic lift, heavy shadows pushing us into deeper obscurity.
Right away, I feel this mistake reflected in my pulse.
My thigh is firm between her legs, pinning her to the wall. I’ve got both her wrists in one hand, gripping them tight above her head, my other hand holding the knife to her throat. Somehow, this doesn’t register.
The shadows are making things worse.
We’re cloaked in the kind of semidarkness that makes bad decisions feel forgivable. This close, I can still see into her eyes. This close, I can still make out the curve of her lips. She’s cold and wet, her cat ears drooping as her hood slips back, but there’s no trace of fear in her eyes. In fact, she’s giving me that wild, unguarded look, the one I’ve seen only twice before—something so intense it’s close to awe.
It gives me a small heart attack.
She blinks slowly and I watch, transfixed, as a raindrop releases from her eyelashes. She looks so soft and vulnerable I have to actively remind myself that this girl just stabbed me. Twice.
I really didn’t think this through.
“You need to stay away from me,” she whispers.
“You need to answer my questions—”
“Once I’m gone, I want you to leave the airfield,” she says. “Don’t let them find you anywhere near me.”
“Rosabelle—”
“I love your freckles,” she whispers, her gaze moving slowly across my face. “Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I count them in my head.”
I take this like a gunshot.
I release on instinct, a flood of emotion disarming me just enough that she manages to slip one of her hands free and throw an elbow into my barely healed thigh. I stumble, gasping, and it’s the edge she needs: she lands a few quick blows to my ribs, forcing space between us before she doubles back, jump kicks off the wall, and strikes my side wound so hard I’m still reeling when she tears off running—directly into the line of fire.
Fuck.
I grit my teeth through the pain, blood seeping through my renewed injuries. I know the instant she’s spotted, because the hangar dissolves into an explosion of shouts and the deafening sounds of chaos. I hear the clangor of metal, the thunder of boots. Machine-gun fire echoes off the walls, bullets pinging off steel surfaces, ringing in my ears.
I sigh, closing my eyes.
