“You don’t go outside alone.”
I let that hit.
“You don’t touch anything. Understood?”
She opens her mouth, then closes it, choosing her next words carefully. “I’m not used to taking orders, and I won’t start now. But your rules seem like common sense. So, okay.”
Okay.
Too easy with her.
“Good,” I grunt.
But she’s still looking at me like there’s a question in her mind.
“What?” I ask.
“You don’t act like a man who abandoned someone.”
Not a question.
A conclusion.
Her words hit somewhere deep enough to hurt. “Be careful making assumptions about me,” I say, setting down the book and turning my back toward her on the cot.
Chapter
Nine
RHYS
Ilie awake until her breathing grows soft and steady. Can’t trust fading out myself.
Too many nights I wake screaming… in a cold sweat. Dreaming about this woman’s brother. Her twin brother.
Can’t lose control like that tonight.
But I can’t let her know how much she’s disrupting my patterns. So, I wait until I’m sure she’s out, then get up silently, gathering my things to check traps.
Still too early for that, though. I settle in the barn near the place where the boards split too wide. That way, the sun’ll wake me if I oversleep.
I won’t.
Never do.
An explosion. Dust in the air.
Salty and metallic in my mouth. Ears ringing.
Phoenix looks at me, screaming something. Blood covers half his face. I can’t make out the words.
Though I try, straining to keep my balance.
Never can get those words.
Bullets whiz past. Percussive popping against bone and flesh. Men dropping. Regrouping in the gore.
Something slams down hard against me, and I stagger back, vision blurring, blackening for a moment.
