Page 27

Amaia

“ H ere is fine,” I said as I turned my back to the rocks. The dampness of the cold, slick moss kissed the skin around the straps of the black tank top tucked into my cargos.

The ocean churned under the setting sun. This corner of Moss Landing State Beach created a natural border of protection from the scariest thing out there; people. With the curve of the beach playing to our favor, anyone coming toward us would have no cover.

“Right, and let you set us up?” Serenity scoffed and turned toward Hunter. “No way. We’ll stop when Hunter says we stop.”

Rubbing my temples, I closed my eyes in irritation. I wasn’t sure the relation between them. If he was her Riley or something more, either way, she was a nuisance. “I’m not going to like you at all, am I?”

Ignoring her protest, I gave her my back and dropped my bag onto the sand. I ruffled through it as I listened for hidden context. Waiting to see how the power dynamics of their group played out. Did Serenity have any real sway or was she all whimper no bite?

Would Caleb speak up, or would he sit back and let the two of them figure things out? I never pegged him as an alpha, but I would be a fool to assume the Caleb that lived at Monterey was the same one standing before me.

“Hunter,” Reina’s voice was small against the salty wind. “Please.”

That was all it took. The plea of his baby sister. Hunter sighed, the sound drowned out by Serenity’s groan of disbelief.

“I’ll scope out the perimeter,” Caleb said without pressing further.

The warmth of a palm settled on my shoulder, pressing down with a slight squeeze. “I’ll watch him scope out the perimeter.” Abel proclaimed, earning him a soft but clear snort from the former.

Two tents were erected in half an hour. One for them and one for us. Without ever saying the words, it was clear that one person from each camp would keep watch at the same time throughout the night. Dusk was fast upon us as we settled around the sand in a circle. No fire unless the situation was dire. That was the rule.

Hunter’s crew watched on hungrily as we tore into our dried meats and mixed nuts. Reina offered some to Hunter from her go bag. He stared at the bags for a moment before falling victim to the weakness of starvation, offering some to Serenity. They were a lean bunch, that was for certain.

I tossed over three nutrient bars to Serenity with the smallest of grins. They were for emergencies. Shit out of luck scenarios. The average daily caloric intake was jam-packed into a 2 x 4 bar crammed with proteins, iron, and who knows what the hell else. Obviously, they needed it more than I did.

“Tossing us scraps like a dog,” Serenity snapped. “Should I bark too?”

“Nah, that’s my job,” Alexiares said, voice flat. His stare followed with the clear message that lacked jest. I was under no obligation to divvy out rations we may need in the future, but I did anyway out of goodwill.

Serenity offered a curt nod as she met my eye. Hunter cleared his throat, switching the conversation into small talk with expert ease. Controlling the crowd just as all Moores had been gifted—from nature or nurture, I wasn’t quite sure. Reina’s head fell to her brother’s shoulder as he talked, not stopping to catch a breath. Her vacant stare not matching her appropriately timed chimes of laughter.

If someone had asked me ten months ago who was the strongest emotional tether of my family, the answer would have wholeheartedly been Reina. She was the glue. Our tether to our morals. Evidence of the good that existed in this world. I’d always seen her as an unbreakable spirit. But now, the glass-eyed stare consuming her, I feared the dam was about to break at the thoughts of how much the assumption of Hunter’s death had cost her.

Are you all right? I mouthed, making note of Abel and Caleb’s approach.

She nodded, bit her lip, then shook her head no.

“Hunter,” I called, my voice cutting through the low murmur of the group. His gaze lifted to meet mine, steady but unreadable. Blank in a different way than Reina’s. I held it for a moment, forcing myself to see only him—not Seth. Just Hunter. “Our watch. Let’s chat.”

We walked in silence as darkness took over the beach. The great thing about minimal light pollution was that we were used to it by this point. Our eyes had adjusted, evolved to a more primitive state. The waves calmed as Hunter passed by. A quiet display of the mighty power he evidently possessed. I watched him out the side of my eye, his towering figure lethal yet off-kilter in his gait.

My fingers slipped into the pockets of my pants and curled around my little pot of gold. I brought the tip of my pointer to the end and sucked in the smooth, earthly sweet smoke.

“You smoke?” I asked, extending it out to Hunter with a coughed exhale.

“Can’t say that I ever have.”

I snickered at that. Reina always did claim him the golden boy. “Nothing like the present.”

He took it with awkward fingers, falling victim to a first-timer’s pull. I bit back a childish laugh as I watched him fight for a good pull of fresh, clean air. One and done, Hunter jammed it back in front of my face.

“So your compound is about to fall apart. My guess is y’all are near starving, but you got the time to grow marijuana in your backyard?”

“Always time for a bit of debauchery,” I said. The cloudless sky offered a decent view of the empty beach. The perimeter was too quiet—the kind of silence that prickled under the skin and refused to sit still. “Soothes my mind, helps fight off the worser demon.”

I glanced at him, a teasing edge in my voice. But the look didn’t last. My tone dipped. “It’s from a stash from before we left for Duluth. Shared it with your brother.”

Hunter’s head moved with disbelief in an extended shadow. “With Seth? Doesn’t sound like him.”

“Yeah, he did a lot of shit that didn’t sound like him in the end. But you never really know someone, do you?”

“I knew my brother,” he said, the words clipped but steady. “Knew him inside out. Can’t say I’m shocked about how things ended. He’s no better than my father when it comes to restraint. When life gets too peaceful, he finds a reason to make a mess and then clean it up. Reina said it was all for family, but … don’t tell her I’m saying this.”

I held his eye for a beat, then raised my hand and passed the blunt back. “I don’t keep secrets. I secure future collateral to hurt you with.”

He snorted, shaking his head. “I don’t buy his bullshit. Seth has always tended to act first, then patch together a justification later. Sure, maybe he wanted to find me at the start, but somewhere along the way, it stopped being about reuniting our family.”

I found his ability to rationalize the situation fascinating. How someone processed grief—what they chose to hold on to, what they let go of—was a complicated mess.

But Hunter’s resolve felt layered, to say the least.

“You say that as if you knew what he was thinking,” I said.

Hunter’s gaze swept the area as he pulled a small toke, then pushed the rolled herb back my way. “Don’t need to read his mind to know what was in it.” The words passed through gritted teeth.

I cocked my head, skepticism creeping into my expression. “Except your brother could read minds.”

“Since when?”

“Since day one,” I shot back without missing a beat, eyes narrowing at the smallness of his voice. The remnants of curiosity in Hunter’s tone.

“I didn’t know.” His presence shifted, the air around us thickening. The waves crashed harder against the shore. Seth had kept him in the dark about something.

I wasn’t interested in comforting him. I was testing him. Reina had mentioned years ago that Seth hadn’t even realized his gift until after they’d left the ranch. The waves slammed louder, the ocean rising with anger. I took a step closer, my voice colder as I stomped out the butt of the blunt. “So tell me something you do know. Something about your father that makes not killing you worth whatever retaliation follows.”

“What if I told you I had people placed everywhere that matters?”

I stared ahead, the dark horizon in my sights, without acknowledging him. The salty sea air cut through the night, his emotions rocking with the tide. “What if I told you if any of them are behind my walls without my permission, they’re dead?”

“Relax. I was speaking within my father’s ranks.”

I finally glanced at him, an eyebrow arched. “Consider me curious.”

He gave a quick, almost bitter chuckle. “In the camps. In his ranks. At his table. Sympathizers are everywhere.”

The faintest hint of a smirk tugged at my lips. “I’m high, Hunter, but I’m not fucking stupid. Your father runs a tight ship.”

Hunter’s boots tossed sand as his voice grew colder, sharper. “Not if you know how to sink it. Where to poke a hole.”

Hunter was saying it as though it were a simple choice, a guilt-free initiative—take his father down. As if there was any easy way to do that. I had a good idea of what it took to pull something like that off, and I knew enough to be wary of anyone who seemed too sure about it.

I froze mid-step. The rhythm of the ocean punctuated the silence between us. Pivoting toward him, my gaze cut through the darkness. “You’re sure you’re ready to do this? I hope you know I won’t make his death easy or quick. Reina has made her peace with that.”

“The second he put a hit out on my head, he was dead to me.” There was something about the way he spoke—rough and raw, a wound left unhealed—that made me trust him to never waiver in his loyalty.

The air stung as it filled my chest. The silence stretched between us. Feeling every bit as though the world was holding its breath. “To be clear, you’re implying he knows that it is you leading a rebellion and not Caleb?”

He was still, the space between us thick. “No. Still not sure if he knows about me. I saw him with the group that cornered our caravan near Salem’s borders, right before they attacked Monterey. Serenity, Caleb, and I were retreating with some of the others. Our group was separated, and his back was turned to me. He just stood there, watching them terrorize with a smirk on his face. My father was never a gentle man, but this cruelty … seeing it with my own eyes rather than hearing of it was jarring to say the least. My guess is, if he does know I’m out there, then he didn’t expect me to hear of Reina or for Reina and I to make contact before you killed me. Your boyfriend’s kind of known to keep the habit of killing first, no questions asked before or later. Seth, though, there’s no way he’d extend my father’s deal if he knew it was my death warrant he was signing.”

I took a step closer, the wind pulling at my hair, the salty sting of the ocean air sharp on my skin. “Sounds like your daddy’s got a weakness that’s ripe for me to exploit.”

The night had passed on faster than I’d expected. Alexiares and Serenity relieved us from our shift and woke us at the onset of dawn to get moving. We nibbled on what was left of our nuts and dried fruit as Reina worked to refill our canisters of water for the hike back. Instead of the forced small talk we’d imposed on last night, the group sat in uncomfortable silence. There was no use in drawing out the inevitable.

“Enough bullshitting,” I said, getting straight to the point. “How many of you are in the area?” I asked.

“None you need to be aware of.”

“Okay,” I bit back at Serenity, who stared back with a brazen glare filled with distaste. “I’ll just leave them outside the walls to either get captured or die. With Ronan on the prowl, probably both.”

Hunter held a hand out, pressing Serenity back down, who stupidly had risen to her feet in challenge. “Only about a hundred of us would be comfortable enough to make our way into a space we won’t be able to leave at our own will.”

“Their demise then,” I shrugged, refusing to meet Reina’s piercing stare, the silent plea in her eyes burning a hole in my fucking forehead. “Our gates are shut down unless you have proof of identity and others to vouch for your residency from Elko or Sacramento. I can figure it out in small droves, not all hundred at once. Fifteen a day until they all get there.”

Alexiares cleared his throat, finishing where I left off. “You’ll have to assume an identity from one of the fallen settlements. Avoid the refugees at all costs. If you’re pressed, don’t volunteer your origins—wait for them to reveal theirs first. If it comes to that.”

“My people are curious and skeptical of newcomers,” I said, letting the words hang for context.

Caleb shifted uncomfortably. He peered over at Serenity with the slightest of movements. I cut my gaze to follow his, catching the faint, deliberate tap of her fingers brushing toward the ground. Alexiares noticed it too, his body stilling as he gave a single sharp nod to acknowledge the signal.

“We all are,” Abel surmised, his heavy stare stopping and landing on essentially three strangers before us. That familiar cocky resolve, a youthful tug of his ego, bringing the rough confidence back to his voice. The same confidence that brought out the warrior in him out on the battlefield.

“Hunter, you come first,” Reina insisted as she inched closer to him.

Her brown hair brushed the tips of her shoulders as she tilted her head to take him in. Hunter glanced down at her, caution flickering in his eyes. His gaze shifted from her to Serenity, more focused now, as if he were reasoning with her. Her lips tightened, a silent pull of reluctant defeat.

“Won’t people sort of recognize the resemblance between you two?” Abel asked, voicing the concern that had been gnawing at me as I studied the siblings in the unforgiving light of day—no adrenaline to mask the obvious. “Especially if you stand right next to each other.”

“Then don’t.” Caleb’s voice cut through the unease, drawing every eye to him. “Look, when this is over, you two can play happy family all you want. But for now, when Hunter arrives, he’s nothing more than an emissary from Elko. Their leadership fell, along with most of their top-ranking military officials. No one who matters survived to make a claim against them. Elko wasn’t much smaller than Monterey. Faces blur. No one will notice.”

“He’s right,” Serenity added, her tone firm as her gaze pinned Hunter. “For your safety, once we’re there, if you’re in the same room, you stay on opposite sides. Minimal interactions—at least in public.”

Reina flinched under the weight of her words, exchanging a glance with her brother. The tension between them grew thick enough to cut before they finally nodded. It wasn’t peace—it was a fragile agreement, hanging in the air with all the tension of a storm not yet broken.

None of us moved. The quiet pressed heavy on my chest. Somewhere, this plan felt destined to break.

“We should move out.” Alexiares’s voice was low, but it broke through the silence with finality.