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“Billie?”

“I’m sorry, I’m just really exhausted from the day,” I said, making up the only lie that came to mind. I couldn’t talk to him right now about this. I didn’t want to talk to him about it later, either. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t need to have this conversation ever again.

He wrapped his arm around my waist, tugging me against him.

“If Finn couldn’t undo it, I don’t think it can be undone,” he said, as if trying to console me.

I nodded, but I didn’t believe it. I’d find a way.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Kaden and I were walking the outskirts of Nowhere, sticking to the smaller roads with dim lighting. Neither of us had discussed last night. We’d woken and moved on with the day, what we had to do, as if it hadn’t happened. I was grateful. I needed to keep my wits about me today, and not get sucked into an emotional black hole. There was already a feeling of bleakness here without any added stress.

“It feels…emptier,” I said.

“People are trying to stay close to home and out of the eye of the storm, lie low, not get dragged into the fight,” he said.

The only people I’d spotted so far were Herrick’s soldiers. They’d glanced in our direction, but between the battered cloaks and clothes, we must’ve looked unassuming enough to pass, or they just weren’t concerned. We made our way to the small apartment Cookie had taken up since Herrick’s arrival.

She opened the door before we got there, ushering us in. The drapes were closed, and a single candle lit the place.

It was a single-room apartment, the furnishings spare and without her usual touch, but that was all she needed. Something quiet and small on the fringes of the city, where no one would notice her coming and going.

“How was the trip?” she asked.

“Couple of soldiers passed, but no one seemed to pay us any mind,” I said.

The door swung open, and I jerked around, every sense on high alert, my body already gearing up for the fight that was coming.

Connor and Dice walked in, and I launched myself at them, hugging Dice and then Connor. This last month had made me realize how much they’d become my family. It had been weeks since I’d seen them, and it felt like years.

They looked like they were holding up about as well as Cookie, with matching dark circles and strain around the eyes.

How bad was it? What were they seeing that this bleakness was coming over them?

I turned to Cookie. “You ready?”

She and I were going to check out the city, while Kaden went deeper into Nowhere, seeing what information he could gather around the fortress.

“Ready when you are,” she said.

She didn’t seem ready, though. She looked worse than the last time I’d seen her, which hadn’t been that long ago.

Kaden grabbed my arm, stopping me from leaving. “If something goes wrong, someone comes at you, you kill them and you get back to Wastelands. I’ll catch up with you there, okay?”

“Got it. Kill all and get out of Dodge.” I smiled, as if this were all a big joke. It was easier than the truth.

“I’m serious,” Kaden said.

“I’ll get her back alive,” Cookie said, grabbing my arm and dragging me along with her.

The moment we stepped outside, she grew more fidgety than ever.

The closer we got to the heart of the city, the bigger the pit in my stomach grew. Everywhere we turned, I saw Herrick’s soldiers.

“There’s so many of them. They’re everywhere. This place is crawling with his people, and we aren’t even anywhere near the fortress, where he has the most.”

“I know.” That exhausted look and tone she seemed to constantly carry lately was making its cause known.