"I don't need to." I reached up and ran my thumb across the pulse of her neck. She didn't flinch away but closed her eyes and exhaled. "I know me."
She reached out and her hands fisted in my shirt. She didn't say anything.
Outside, the wind howled through the trees like a warning.
The monsters were coming.
And if I wanted to keep her alive—
I'd have to become one again.
Chapter Twenty-Four — Vinny
I woke up to an empty bed, the space beside me already cold.
Through the bedroom doorway, I could see the front entrance to the cabin swinging wide open. The cold weight of the Glock Jamie kept for protection was in my hand before my brain even fully registered that I'd grabbed it from the nightstand. I was moving on pure instinct, bare feet slapping against the wooden floorboards.
Bright morning light streamed through the open threshold. Directly outside, a black van with no plates idled in the dirt. A man leaned casual against the side panel, arms crossed over a massive barrel chest, his dark skin gleaming in the Florida sun.
I had the barrel of the Glock pressed flush against his temple before he could even turn his head.
"Easy there, killer," his voice rumbled deep, completely unfazed by the steel digging into his skin.
"Vinny, no!"
Jamie's voice cut through the morning air. She came around the back of the van, her arms loaded with heavy canvas duffel bags. She was dressed in a tight bodysuit—the exact kind she’d been wearing the first day we met. I recognized the look instantly. It was her armor. It wasn't therealher.
The man chuckled, the vibration rattling against my gun barrel. "Told you to get that iron out of my face."
Jamie dropped the bags with a heavy thud. "This is Moses. He's... an old friend."
Moses grinned, flashing perfect white teeth. "A friend who could be more, if she'd ever let me."
My trigger finger twitched.
Jamie rolled her eyes and smacked his bicep. "Shut up." She turned her gaze to me, that familiar, guarded smirk playing at her lips—the exact one she’d weaponized when we first met. "I needed a favor, papi. We needed real firepower, and I needed some leverage he was keeping safe for me. So I called him."
The gun stayed locked on Moses's skull. "You didn’t tell me."
Her smirk faltered for a fraction of a second. Then she shrugged, slipping back into that old persona like a well-worn jacket. "Didn't want to wake you. You were sleeping so pretty, papi."
The use ofpapiin front of this man made my jaw ache. She was intentionally detaching herself from me, drawing a line in the dirt between us. It set my blood on fire.
Moses clapped his massive hands together, intentionally breaking the stare down. "Alright, enough foreplay. You wanna see what I brought, or what?"
As Jamie moved toward the rear doors of the van, she brushed hard past me, close enough for me to feel the radiating heat of her skin. I finally lowered the Glock, though the tension in my face didn't fade. My hand shot out, my fingers wrapping tightly around her wrist.
She froze.
For a long, suffocating moment, we just stood there in the yard, the morning air thick with unspoken friction. I could feel her pulse racing erratically beneath my thumb.
“Wake me up next time.”
She let out a sharp exhale like I was testing her patience, pulling her arm out of my grip, but she gave me a single nod.
Moses whistled low from the bumper. "Damn. I see I won’t be getting that chance anytime soon. Not with the way y'all are making love to each other with your eyes."
Jamie shot him a lethal glare. "Just show us the damn guns already, Moses."
