Page 24

“You enjoy looking at my mouth?”

My eyes snap up to find him watching me back with eyes that shine with mischief. “I am not,” I snap.

Deny, deny, deny.

I bring a spoonful of soup to my mouth. He’s forced a second can on me when he realized I didn’t eat the first one.

His lips pull into that crooked half-smile he wears when he thinks he’s winning. I’m pretty sure he had that same smile while unconscious. “Don’t worry. You’ve already kissed it. No takesies-backsies.”

I choke on air and launch into a coughing fit.

Jace doesn’t even look up. “Don’t antagonize the girl who already struggles to breathe.”

“I’m the one who got blown up,” Mars says with a lazy smile still tugging at his mouth. “She’s just allergic to feelings. Besides, she can breathe perfectly fine.”

“Damn right,” I add, anger rising alongside something warmer. “I don’t spontaneously burst into panic attacks because some asshole decides to be an ass.”

Jace looks up then, and the hard lines of his face smooth out. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should choose my words better.”

I blink at him in surprise, not expecting the genuine humility from him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Caspian settling back down. He’d started moving toward Jace after that comment, but now he’s standing down. Warmth spreads through me at the silent man’s protective gesture.

I shoot Mars a glare, but the heat in my face probably gives me away. Instead, I focus on my food and scoop another bite, mostly so I don’t have to look at him again.From the corner of my eye, I see him watching me, still wearing that stupid smile.

What an ass.

Something flutters in my stomach.

I tell myself it’s hunger.

But I know better.

The fire has burneddown to glowing coals, mostly buried in ash. The cold sinks in now, biting at my fingers and sinking through Mars’s flannel into my clothes.

Still, everyone’s asleep.

Well…almost everyone.

Mars is stretched out nearby, still a little pale but breathing easier. Jace is where I expect him to be. Leaning against the car, arms crossed, and chin tucked to his chest. He’s not asleep. Merely sitting there, wound tight in that silent, coiled state he disappears into. I’ve stopped asking why he keeps tinkering with a half-dead car when we could easily find another. I suspect it’s not about transportation. It’s about keeping his hands busy, so his head stays quiet. He’s been clear he doesn’t want to talk about it.

My gaze drifts to where Caspian should be.

Empty.

I sit up straighter and scan the shadows. The firelight doesn’t reach far, but my eyes have adjusted enough to know something’s off. Beyond the dying glow, a faint line marks where his boots dragged through the dirt. A trail that wasn’t there before.

He must not have wanted anyone following him.

Well, too bad.

After adding another log to the fire, I rise to my feet in slow motion so I don’t wake the others, and slip off into the night.

The wind shifts through the trees overhead, moonlight spilling down in silver ribbons. A shiver runs through me at the loss of what little warmth the campfire provided, and I tug the flannel tight around myself. I keep my steps light while weaving through broken beams and walls. It doesn’t take long to find him.

He’s maybe fifty feet from camp, crouching in shadows between two jagged slabs of concrete. Moonlight catches on the pale fall of his hair where it spills across half his face. He’s curled against a rusted support post with his knees pulled to his chest and his arms wrapped around them.

His pain is so palpable, it flows through me as though it were my own. To see him slink off into the shadows alone like this.