“Right.” She clutched her arms around her body.
He looked back at her and held her gaze. “I’m sorry, Ava. I don’t want you to worry, but I’ll always tell you the truth.”
“I appreciate that.”
“We’re fine here for now, and you should try to relax.” He gave her an earnest smile. “If or when that changes, I’ll let you know.”
“But how will you know?”
“Like I said, figuring out who killed Jamal is our best bet. We know who killed him, we know who might be coming for you, then we can see how worthy of an adversary he is.”
“Pretty worthy if he killed a guy who specialized in weapons,” she said, hating the sound of putting words to her thought.
The door opened, and Micha shot a hand to his sidearm.
Carrying backpacks and tote bags, Colin and Dev stepped into the room, rain running off of their hoods and jackets.
Colin swiped a hand over his face and handed her pack to her. “We’ll just grab your suitcase and the groceries and be right back.”
The two men departed again.
An overwhelming urge to keep her possessions close hit her like a punch to the gut. She sat down on the sofa facing the fireplace, put her pack on her knees, and hugged the bag close to her body.
Micha had laid kindling in the firebox and made a tent of wood above it. He retrieved a lighter from a holder on the raised hearth and flicked the flame against the kindling.
“Cheater.” She grinned, but her joke felt flat to her.
“Hey.” His eyes sparkled with humor. “The first rule of survival is to use what you have at hand, and I have a lighter.”
“That’s not what you told the group.”
“This is a case of do what I say, not what I do.” He laughed and then blew on the flame until it was licking greedily against the dry wood, brightening the room with flickers of light.
He nodded at her pack still clutched in her arms. “Old habits?”
“You understand, don’t you? Be ready to go at all times.”
“I do, but the need to be ready to leave from my foster days were pretty much replaced by Marine readiness.” He stood.
“Which is why you had Colin back in?”
He nodded. “You’ll find service members or former service members who don’t back their vehicles in. But even if it didn’t stem from that, common sense says if we have to flee at a moment’s notice, pointing our vehicles toward the exits is a wise move.”
Hard rain began pelting the roof again as the door opened.
“Got here in the nick of time.” Colin set her suitcase down and rain ran down the hard side to puddle on the pine-wood floor.
Dev carried bags of the groceries they’d stopped in the nearest city to buy straight to the kitchen, the reusable cloth bags splotchy with rain. She set her backpack on the couch and went to help him stow the food. When she was hiding out here before going to survival camp, she’d brought a large cooler that she’d planned to use in lieu of having electricity, so she took bags of ice he’d carried in and dumped them inside the chest.
“This will be good practice for your off-grid living,” Dev said.
“Maybe we can even teach you a thing or two yet.” Colin laughed.
“Let’s get more wood inside before the wind picks up again.” Micha led the way to the door, and Colin followed.
Dev started unloading the food bags that held canned soups, breads, and cereals.
The quantity of food soon filled the Formica countertop below the beige cabinets.
