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Not to mention, whichever bedroom I started in wouldn’t necessarily be the same bedroom I finished.

I ducked through the archway and into kitchen to make sure it was empty. Maverick was prone to random bouts of insomnia, and Gage’s appetite had him up sometimes, fixing all sorts of crazy midnight snacks. It made me happy, thinking about how well I was beginning to know them. But there was still so much to learn. So many things I had yet to share with them.

That’s when I noticed the mugs in the sink. And the coffee pot sitting in the middle of the counter, still about a third full of rich black liquid.

Going to bed with the kitchen like this seemed strange to me, especially in light of Maverick’s obsessive cleaning habits. But I crept up the stairs anyway, turned the knob, silently pushed on Devyn’s door.

It swung open into an empty bedroom, and an unmade bed.

Frowning, I tried the others and found them exactly the same. All three rooms were empty. All three beds were unmade.

A cold feeling stole over me as I realized I was in the house alone, way out in the middle of the desert. I became hyper-aware of the darkness and shadows. Every little sound — the wind, the blown sand, the house settling — sent a chill down my spine.

That’s when my phone rang, causing me to practically scream.

Forty-Six

JULIANA

“Juliana?”

Devyn’s voice barely registered over the high-pitched sound of some unknown background noise. He’d called from a strange number I didn’t recognize. Even with my heart racing double-time, I was so grateful to hear his voice.

“Oh my God where are you!?” I gasped. “You’re not here. I—I came out to the—”

“You came to the house,” I heard him say. “Yes. We know.”

My eyebrows knit together. “How do you know?”

“Silent alarm. Cameras.” His next sentence was chopped up by static. “We… an alert… front door opened.”

I was walking as I talked, flipping on every light I could find. The house felt so much more welcome with the lights on. So much warmer and safer than in the dark.

“Your trucks are here,” I said. “The chopper too. I thought maybe you’d be sleeping, but—”

“Juliana, we’re on a mission right now,” he cut me off. “Or at least we soon will be. We’re thrilled you’re there and we’d ask you to stay, but we have no idea how long we’ll be gone. It could be weeks. Months, even.”

My hammering heart dropped. “A—And you weren’t going to tell me?”

There was a long pause at the other end of the phone. I thought for a moment we’d been disconnected.

“We didn’t want to worry you,” Devyn said sadly. “And where we’re going—”

“Are you going to be okay?” I demanded, frightened. “Will you besafe?”

It was a stupid question and I knew it. These men weren’t just soldiers, they were special forces. They ran the most dangerous operations in the world.

“We’ll stay safe,” Devyn assured me. “I promise.”

His promise however, did nothing to assuage me. My heart had already sank into my stomach.

“I have to go,” he said again, over the sound of some kind of alarm. “We— I—”

“Be safe!” I called into the phone. “Please, tell the others too. Watch over each other! And I—”

The noises stopped abruptly. The line went dead.

FUCK!