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The dreg above me jerks sideways and collapses to the ground with a grunt when Mars barrels into him. Mars knocks him to the ground and disarms him in one swift move.

Caspian is right behind him, taking down the other dregs before anyone can react, with Luna fighting and biting alongside him.

It’s over in seconds, but I’m still shaking. Still holding her. Still tasting the smoke in my throat while I look into her eyes and realize…

She’s still alive. I got to her in time.

The past and present twist together as Malcolm’s face shifts into hers, the old shed becoming our burning car.

I saved her.

36

AUTUMN

Islam my palms into Jace’s chest, but it’s not enough. I shove him hard, knocking him back into the faded exterior wall of an abandoned arcade. My chest heaves and my heart races. The smell of burnt metal and gasoline from the car fire a hundred feet away lingers in the air, mixing with the musty scent of decaying electronics and the stale air wafting from the open door of the arcade.

Mars, Caspian, and Luna had taken off after the retreating dregs, following their trail to find wherever they came from. Mars promised to get answers while Jace and I stayed behind and licked our wounds. Now it’s Jace and me, alone, mere feet from where our car had exploded, among the forgotten relics of a world that no longer exists. Old arcade machines sit abandoned outside the building with colorful panels faded and peeling. It looks like more game machines were being brought in when the dead rose, a reminder of how quickly everything can be ripped away with carelessness. Rage, fear, and relief all tangle together inside me.

“What the hell was that, Jace?” My voice cracks with desperation.

He doesn’t flinch. He only stands there with his eyes dark and his jaw clenched, like he’s waiting for me to hit him again. His shirt is charred and torn in places, showing off parts of his body like a canvas for his injuries.

The burns on his arms through the tears in his shirt are angry and red against his skin, evidence of what he did to save me. How he almost lost himself in the process. Tiny cuts pepper his elbow from where he broke the car window, and his palm is crosshatched with lacerations from clearing the glass before pulling me through. Small burn marks speckle the back of his hands where he touched the scorching metal.

“You were going to do nothing but lie there,” I spit out. My voice cracks with each word. “You were going to let them shoot you. You were going to?—”

“Protect you.”

I shove him again, harder this time. “That wasn’t protection.” My eyes burn with unshed tears. “That was giving up. That was throwing yourself away, and for what? I’m not worth your life.”

His hands snap out to catch my wrists and pull me closer. Close enough that I can feel the heat still radiating off his skin from the earlier fire. His dark brown eyes lock on mine with an intensity that steals my breath. “I can’t lose you,” he bites out, each word more ferocious than the rest as he tells his truth.

My breath catches, and my words come out as a rasp. “I just lost my sister. I can’t lose you, too.”

The fight still burns within me. Anger and fear knot together so tight I don’t know where one ends, and the other begins. I yank my wrists free, but instead of pulling away, I grab his shirt, fisting it tight, and slam my mouth against his.

The kiss is rough. It’s messy, with teeth clashing and tongues battling. His hands reach up to tangle in my hairand pull me closer. I bite his lip hard enough to make him growl and he slams me back against the wall before his mouth trails along my jaw, his breath hot against my skin.

“You said we shouldn’t do this,” I struggle to say against the intensity of the kiss.

“Well, I was wrong. I was so, so wrong.” His palms press against the sides of my head, holding me in place while he devours my mouth.

I moan, clawing at his shirt, ripping another tear in it when I yank it over his head. I pause to trace my fingertips along the burn scar through his eyebrows, and for the first time, he lets me. The scar is rough beneath my fingers, a physical reminder of the pain he’s survived. To me, it shows how strong and undeniably loyal he is, even when he’s a stubborn pain in the ass.

My gaze shifts to Jace’s elbow with the constellation of cuts marring his skin, and I brush my fingers over them. “Your eyebrow is like an exclamation point,” I say.

He pauses to look at me, with his thumb gliding along my cheekbone and his brow furrowing, proving my statement correct.

“Now your elbow’s going to be what…an elipses, always leaving me waiting for more?” I try to smile, but it falters. “Your hands might end up matching your eyebrow if we don’t clean those burns, and I’m not sure how I feel about a field of exclamation points.”

His lips crack into a smile at my ridiculousness and he shakes his head as if his injuries are nothing. “Worth it.”

He grabs his shirt from me and tosses it to the ground, pulling me out of my trance. My hands explore the planes of his chest, his shoulders, his biceps, feeling the strength that pulled me from the flames. My fingers trace the fresh burns on his arms and the cuts on his hands, and I press my lips to them gently, as if I could heal them with nothing but touch and pure will.

“You could have died,” I whisper against his skin. A rotter moans in the distance, and I pull my knife out, ready, but there isn’t one in sight yet.

“So could you.” He tilts my chin up to look at him. “I wouldn’t have survived that. Not again.”