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Not with the last piece of my collection sitting right here, practically glowing in the kitchen light. He’s too perfect. Too steady. The kind of guy who’d say yes now and then run the second things got weird. And with me? Things are always going to get weird.

So I smile.

And I stab him in the neck.

Quick little jab, practiced and smooth. He jerks slightly, more in surprise than pain, and blinks up at me with the most betrayed expression, like I just stepped on his dog.

“What’s… why?” His voice is already fuzzy around the edges, thick and sleepy, and it punches me straight in the chest.

I crouch beside him, easing his head gently against my shoulder, not just to keep him from slumping onto the floor, but because I need to touch him. To feel him go soft and heavy in my arms.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I murmur, brushing my fingers through his tousled hair like we’ve known each other for years. “It’ll all make sense. You’ll see.”

He blinks up at me one last time before his lashes flutter closed, and I catch myself smiling like an idiot as he goes limp.

Because this one?

Oh, I’m going to spoil him rotten.

Chapter Fifteen

Evan

As soon as her call comes in, Dean’s already starting the car like we’ve trained for this moment.

And apparently, we have. Because suddenly we’re not just two guys living in a bunker with a hot lunatic, we’re a full-blown apocalypse farm-moving crew.

Because, sure, why not. Milk and eggs don’t exactly grow on trees, and food runs are getting more dangerous by the day. And rabid, squirrel-like people apparently beat the hell out of you if you try to take their powdered creamer.

So yeah. It matters.

I spot a trailer as we pull down the dirt road and breathe out a little. “That’s a relief,” I mutter, already doing the math in my head. “Because moving a dairy cow on top of this sedan? Wasn’t gonna happen.”

Dean, without missing a beat, taps the windshield with two fingers like he’s blessing the farm. “We can latch that bastard to the tractor.” He nods toward a smaller one. “I’ll hitch that to the car. Chickens and supplies ride there.”

I scan the driveway, spot a truck already hitched to a third trailer. “He’s got a rig ready to go,” I say. “We take all three. One trip.”

Dean whistles low. “It’s gonna be like playing drunk apocalypse Tetris, but yeah. One trip’s better than five.”

“It’s an all-day job either way,” I mutter, already picturing the manual labor. “We’re not just kidnapping a man, we’re stealing his entire livelihood. Goats, chickens, hay bales, a cow…”

Dean grins. “You ever wrangle farm animals, Doc?”

I turn and give him a look. “No, Dean. Shocking, I know, but the ER doesn’t get a lot of chickens. You get many needing oil changes?”

Dean just cracks his knuckles like he’s been waiting for this exact challenge his whole life. “Eh, Maple figured everything else out. She’ll figure this out too.”

And that’s the part that gets me.

Because she will.

Somehow, this woman, this completely unqualified, unhinged, deeply inappropriate woman, is building something that actually works. One hostage at a time.

“She’ll probably want Wade in the car with her,” I say, watching the porch. “Let him wake up comfy.”

It’s insane. All of it.

I used to do chest compressions and gunshot trauma and keep people alive long enough for a surgeon to swoop in. Now I’m helping steal a tractor and relocate livestock before some feral post-vaccine meth head stabs a dairy cow that now belongs to us.