Page 12

AUTUMN

I should be hungry. My stomach’s empty, my limbs feel hollow, and there’s a numb sort of weakness crawling under my skin, but the ache in my chest drowns out everything else. It swells beneath my ribs like it wants to bruise my lungs from the inside out.

We spent hours searching this morning. Mars led the way, a step ahead, his eyes scanning every shadow with military precision.

Jace took the left flank, moving tight to the terrain in full combat mode, and looking devastatingly competent while doing it.

Caspian stuck close to me and stayed silent, but his gaze was sharper than I expected. More calculating.

None of us talked much. I kept my head down and eyes on the ground, trying to ignore the dread seeping into my thoughts while searching for something, anything, that would prove I’m not chasing ghosts.

All we found was a torn scrap of canvas caught on rusted fence wire.

Brownish-gray fabric, the kind worn by soldiers.

Well, or by men who wanted to be mistaken for them, according to Mars.

Heavy-duty stitching, industrial, stained with earth and time.

Faded shapes stamped around it, some sort of military emblems or something close, but they’re too smudged to make out.

We also found signs that someone had been there recently.

There was disturbed earth around a long-cold fire pit, boot prints in the soft dirt near a creek, and a few crushed cigarette butts that weren’t too weathered.

There’s no way to know if these traces belonged to the men who took Summer, or merely other survivors who were passing through.

It could have been anyone. It’s not nearly enough to go on, but it’s all we have. Right now, it’s everything.

Now, I sit cross-legged near our fire pit at the front of the old shop’s hollowed-out shell, dust clinging to my boots and the frayed hems of my jeans, while Mars fusses over lunch like the soup had a vendetta against his ancestors.

He hunches over a battered camp stove with one knee planted and one brow furrowed, poking a dented can with the grim determination most people reserve for disarming bombs.

“This was chicken once,” he mutters, examing the contents. “Probably.”

I should eat. No, I need to eat. But my thoughts won’t let me.

I see that torn scrap that mocks me every time I close my eyes.

The ragged evidence of someone I want to tear apart limb by limb for what they did to her.

For how they’ve destroyed me. This is why I didn’t want to go back there.

I didn’t want to relive the memories of failing the only person I ever truly cared about in this damn world. The only person who mattered.

“Still not hungry?” Jace asks. He sits across from me, leaning against a slab of broken concrete with his long legs stretched out and his pistol within reach. Even relaxed, there’s something magnetic about his controlled intensity.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re lying,” Mars says without glancing up from his stirring. “Your stomach’s louder than mine.”

“I just don’t feel like it. ”

Mars doesn’t argue. He gives me a look, sighs, and keeps poking the soup like it’ll change its mind and decide to become more edible.

Jace, however, doesn’t let it go. “Autumn, you look like you haven’t eaten in a week.”

“That’s generous,” Mars adds. “I’d guess two, at least.”

Caspian, draped in shadow against the shop’s far wall, flicks his pale eyes toward us from his brooding spot. “We could always pour broth into your mouth while you sleep.”

Mars grins, and damn if that smile doesn’t make my pulse skip. “I’ll hold her down.”

Jace raises his brows, and I catch one corner of his mouth twitch. “I’ll do the spoon-feeding.”

Caspian deadpans, “I’ll keep watch in case she wakes up and murders you both.”

Jace gives him a solemn nod. “You’re a good man.”

I shake my head and try not to smile, but fail. It cracks through anyway. Summer was the only one who could make me smile since the dead rose.

Until now. Until these three insufferable, attractive assholes crashed into my life.

Mars brings the can over and lowers himself beside me with an exaggerated groan. He presses the warm metal into my hands and drops a spoon in my lap. “It’s cooled off enough now. Eat, or we really will do it.”

My limbs feel heavy, but I wrap my fingers around the can and take the spoon. “You guys are the worst.”

“You love it.” Mars playfully bumps his shoulder into mine, causing me to spill soup onto my jean shorts. The contact sends warmth shooting through me that has nothing to do with the temperature of the food.

“Hey, watch it, or this will only nourish the dirt instead of me.”

“Let her eat, Mars,” Jace says without looking up from cleaning his pistol. There’s something protective in his tone that makes my stomach flutter.

Mars lifts both hands in mock surrender. “Hey, hey, alright, cool it.”

The food isn’t good. Not even close. It tastes like someone boiled regret and despair, but I eat it anyway, because I need to. Because they need me to. Because Summer needs me to stay strong enough to find her.

And maybe, just a little, because they make me feel like I’m not completely unraveling.

The guys fall into familiar bickering about spoon hierarchy and whether Caspian’s turn to cook is actually going to happen.

Their voices blur as something shifts in the space between broken walls.

I glance past the campfire, through the gaps in the wall, and spot a shape outside the storefront where a German Shepherd stands partially hidden behind a rusted support beam with ears perked forward.

Her coat is patchy with dirt and leaves, and she’s watching me.

She’s been trailing me for days, staying out of reach but never far. Now she’s close again, but still watching me from a distance. Her nose twitches, and when I lift another spoonful to my lips, she licks hers.

My gaze flicks toward the others, but they’re too busy arguing to notice me move. I rise and take slow steps toward the dog, crouching low to avoid spooking her. This time, she doesn’t run.

I settle a few feet away and set the can beside me. The smell isn’t much, but maybe it’ll entice her.

She inches forward, and sunlight catches a small metal tag on a faded red collar beneath thick fur. I lean in to read it.

“Luna?” I whisper.

Her ears twitch and her head tilts. She steps closer.

“That’s your name, isn’t it? Luna. Such a pretty girl,” I coo .

I keep my fingers relaxed with my palm down near the can while she sniffs the rim.

I don’t touch her, don’t move. Only wait.

She laps up the remaining soup in desperate gulps.

Her ribs are visible with every breath she takes.

Something aches in my chest that isn’t about Summer or rotters or even the guys.

It’s her, Luna, doing her best to survive alone.

Like me. She’s licking the remnants off the bottom of the can when we’re interrupted.

“Autumn?” Mars’s voice cuts through the space.

Luna whirls around and vanishes down the street before I can breathe her name again.

“Shit.” I stand.

Mars jogs up beside me, scanning the trees. “Are you okay? You disappeared, and I wasn’t sure if something happened.”

“I’m fine.” I stare at where Luna vanished, then shake my head and walk with him to rejoin the others. Mars doesn’t pry. He only hovers.

We sit in a loose circle beneath by the fire at the front of our little gutted storefront shelter. Sunlight bleeds through overhead cracks, casting long shadows across broken concrete. The air smells like rust, ash, and smoke.

It’s not peace, and it’s not safety, but for a few minutes in the quiet between storms, surrounded by men who are clearly as broken as I am but still fighting, it almost feels normal.

Almost.

A thought creeps in. What if we never find her? What if Summer is already gone and all I’m doing is dragging these men through hell for nothing? The possibility sends a shiver down my spine that has nothing to do with the temperature.

“You cold?” Mars asks, already shrugging out of his dark gray and black flannel shirt before I can answer. His eyes catch on the torn hem of my shirt. “And that thing’s barely hanging together. ”

“I’m fine.”

Despite my feeble protest, he’s already draping it over my shoulder, and the warmth hits me in an instant.

The fabric is soft and well-worn, and it carries his scent.

Something clean and masculine mixed with woodsmoke and a hint of whatever soap he found.

It’s comforting in a way that makes my chest tighten.

Safe. Like being wrapped in his arms again when I tried so hard not to fall apart.

“I tore a piece off the bottom to press against your head,” I explain, tugging at the ragged hem of my shirt. “When you got blown backward by your own molotov. You were bleeding, and I was trying to stop…um…”

“You were trying to keep me from bleeding out,” he finishes quietly, his black, cold eyes softening.

Something shifts in his expression. Before I can respond, he leans over and presses a gentle kiss to my cheek, his lips warm against my skin.

“Thank you,” he murmurs against my hair. “For not letting me die.”

My breath catches, and heat floods my cheeks.

“Better,” he says, settling back down beside me now in only his black tank that does nothing to hide the sculpted lines of his body and those arms that held me together this morning.

I pull the flannel closer around me, breathing in that distinctive scent that’s purely him. My cheek still tingles from his kiss. “Thanks.”

“Anytime, purple,” he says, then continues talking with Jace about something I can’t focus on.