Page 196 of Silent Shadows

“Rise and shine, bitches!”

I freeze.

Miles closes his eyes.

“Morning’s over,” he mutters.

I bite my lip to keep from laughing.

Owen’s voice cuts through from the kitchenette. “Stop yelling this early.”

“I’m just creating an atmosphere.”

“You’re creating problems.”

Miles groans.

“Your family’s here,” I whisper.

His arm tightens once around me.

“Stay another minute.”

I want to. So I do.

One more minute in the narrow warmth of his bunk.

One more minute before plans and maps and danger and the final push.

One more minute where the world is only his breathing, my heartbeat, and the strange, steady certainty that this place—these people—have become home.

Eventually, we emerge, clumsy and a little sweaty. Miles first, hair wrecked, glasses on crooked, trying very hard to look like a man who did not just spend the night with my elbow cutting into his ribs. I follow two minutes later, wearing leggings, an oversized sweatshirt, and the expression of a person prepared to commit violence if teased before coffee.

A grin spreads slowly across Jax’s face as soon as he sees me.

“Nope,” I say, pointing at him. “Whatever you’re about to say, bury it.”

He places one hand over his heart. “I was going to say you look well-rested.”

“Wow.”

“Emotionally healed?”

“Jax.”

“Glowing?”

Taylor pulls a bagel from a bag and shoves it in Jax’s mouth to shut him up. “Eat your breakfast.”

He splutters around the bagel. “I’m being silenced.”

“No, we’re being spared,” Maya says from the kitchenette, not looking up from an equipment checklist.

Owen sits at the tiny table with a coffee and a map, watching everyone with the exhausted patience of a man trapped in a sitcom he did not audition for.

His eyes flick from Miles to me. One eyebrow lifts. I narrow mine back. He smirks into his coffee.

“Let’s get some real food before we talk through the plan for today. Diner in twenty.”