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The shared affection tightened my chest. I wasn’t sure if I was envious of the dog or of Jesse. “I never saw anyone following me in the states.”

“You wouldn’t.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why did you follow me?”

He gathered up the maps at his feet. “Doesn’t matter.”

“What’s your job?”

“To keep you alive.”

“You’ve invested a lot of energy in this. In me. I want to know why.”

“No. You don’t.”

“Yes. I do.”

Silence.

“Who do you work for?”

“No one.” He put his nose in the maps and turned his back to me.

“What’s your problem?”

Darwin’s heavy chuffs ticked off the passing seconds.

“Wow, you know, I realize I owe you my life,” I said to his back, “but would it be so hard to work on your approach?”

Nothing.

“Forget it. Just one more question then I’ll leave you to your arrogance. Where are we going?”

“We’re meeting my pilot at Aéroport Lyon Saint-Exupéry.” The vowels rolled off his tongue as if French was his native language. He tilted his head, gave me his profile. “My pilot knows his way around the airport and the grounds will be easier to defend.” He grabbed the arrow he was making, stabbed the point in a map and shoved it at me. “We’ll spend the night in the valley of the Arc.”

The arrow head pierced a green-shaded area surrounded by a white blotched mountain range. Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne labeled the nearest dot.

“Tomorrow, we’ll fly from Lyon and go anywhere you want.” His tone was void of emotion.

I gave Darwin a pat on his head, climbed over the wheel space and settled in Roark’s lap. Michio watched the road, but must have felt my stare, because he reached across the space between us and settled a hand on my thigh.

I held his hand there with my own and looped my other arm around Roark’s neck. “Well?”

Roark’s brow bunched. “Ye heard him. He’s offering a vessel to save yourself, those ye love, and perhaps…humanity.”

At least Roark and Michio agreed on something.

As much as I wanted to go home, I knew I never would. “Next you’ll tell me we’ll be boarding this vessel in pairs.”

He held my glower in earnest. “Think on it, love.”

I already had. “We’re going to Iceland.”

A clement breeze teased through the cracked window. Satiny pastures swallowed the shriveled husks of vineyards. The stone archways and blond skeletons of Tuscan homes littered the rolling horizon.

Several hours later, the hills steepened, and the trees stood taller. A pebbled trail branched from the road and with it came a stinging sensation behind my breastbone.

Roark’s arms wound across my midriff. “Evie?”

We passed the trail and the pinch in my chest inflamed. A pinch I hadn’t felt in months. “I don’t know. I feel something…here.” I raised his hand, placed it over my heart.

Michio cut his eyes to me. “Aphids?”

I shook my head. “This is different.”

Roark’s big hand circled over the twinge, his brogue soft. “Ye babes?”

I nodded, hope swelling inside me.

Jesse angled out his window and released an arrow. It wobbled in the trunk of a cone-bearing tree marking the entrance to a side road. The enduros turned off and we followed. The pull in my chest vibrated.

Wider than the path, the Humvee shoved through the heavy brush of larches. Foliage and fuchsia sprayed the windshield. Several kilometers in, we broke through the trees and emerged on a high plateau.

Snowcapped mountains layered the landscape. We bumped along trickling ravines and descended to the mouth of a river. The blue water glimmered under the dipping sun, swaddled by jutting crags and frothy waves. A single ranch-style cabin waited at the bottom.

“The Arc River.” Jesse reached for the door handle. When we skidded to a stop at the porch, he jumped out. “Looks abandoned. Stay put while we sweep.”

Roark and Michio followed him. I reclined in the seat and concentrated on the nudge inside me. Like an unseen hand, it had a hold of me, pulling me back toward that trail.

Tallis poked his head in the door. “All clear.”

I shuffled after him, into the house. Passed a couch, a chair, a bed, more chairs. The one-room space was large, with an equally large fireplace, which is where I found Jesse talking to Michio and Roark.

He watched me approach, expression unreadable. “Your guardians just filled me in on your connection with the aphids.”

My guardians. “Then I’ll save your boys some time. This area is free of bugs.”

“Yeah, we made sure of that, but it’ll be a damn nice security feature to have going forward.”

My chest tugged, pulled my bones with it. “I saw a trail on the way here I need to check out. I’ll take a bike and won’t be gone long.”

I could have sliced the dead air with my dagger.

Jesse’s face transformed into an iron mask. “The answer is no.”

My smile was brief and not a smile at all. “Good thing I didn’t ask a question.”