Page 13

I glance at Mars again. It’s meant to be quick, but my gaze lingers.

He’s focused on his food, sitting with one leg bent and his elbow resting on his knee.

His black tank clings to his chest and arms, his sleeves high enough to show off biceps that make my brain skip.

Those same muscular arms held my pieces together this morning.

His jet-black hair pulls into a low bun that somehow brings out the darkness of his eyes.

He licks the soup from his thumb with a quick swipe that doesn’t totally kill the moment. Not until he opens his mouth to speak.

“You enjoy looking at my mouth?”

My eyes snap up to find him watching me back with eyes that shine with mischief. “I am not,” I snap.

Deny, deny, deny.

I bring a spoonful of soup to my mouth. He’s forced a second can on me when he realized I didn’t eat the first one.

His lips pull into that crooked half-smile he wears when he thinks he’s winning. I’m pretty sure he had that same smile while unconscious. “Don’t worry. You’ve already kissed it. No takesies-backsies.”

I choke on air and launch into a coughing fit.

Jace doesn’t even look up. “Don’t antagonize the girl who already struggles to breathe.”

“I’m the one who got blown up,” Mars says with a lazy smile still tugging at his mouth. “She’s just allergic to feelings. Besides, she can breathe perfectly fine.”

“Damn right,” I add, anger rising alongside something warmer. “I don’t spontaneously burst into panic attacks because some asshole decides to be an ass.”

Jace looks up then, and the hard lines of his face smooth out. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should choose my words better.”

I blink at him in surprise, not expecting the genuine humility from him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Caspian settling back down. He’d started moving toward Jace after that comment, but now he’s standing down. Warmth spreads through me at the silent man’s protective gesture.

I shoot Mars a glare, but the heat in my face probably gives me away. Instead, I focus on my food and scoop another bite, mostly so I don’t have to look at him again. From the corner of my eye, I see him watching me, still wearing that stupid smile.

What an ass.

Something flutters in my stomach.

I tell myself it’s hunger.

But I know better.

The fire has burned down to glowing coals, mostly buried in ash. The cold sinks in now, biting at my fingers and sinking through Mars’s flannel into my clothes.

Still, everyone’s asleep.

Well…almost everyone.

Mars is stretched out nearby, still a little pale but breathing easier.

Jace is where I expect him to be. Leaning against the car, arms crossed, and chin tucked to his chest. He’s not asleep.

Merely sitting there, wound tight in that silent, coiled state he disappears into.

I’ve stopped asking why he keeps tinkering with a half-dead car when we could easily find another.

I suspect it’s not about transportation.

It’s about keeping his hands busy, so his head stays quiet.

He’s been clear he doesn’t want to talk about it.

My gaze drifts to where Caspian should be.

Empty.

I sit up straighter and scan the shadows. The firelight doesn’t reach far, but my eyes have adjusted enough to know something’s off. Beyond the dying glow, a faint line marks where his boots dragged through the dirt. A trail that wasn’t there before.

He must not have wanted anyone following him.

Well, too bad.

After adding another log to the fire, I rise to my feet in slow motion so I don’t wake the others, and slip off into the night .

The wind shifts through the trees overhead, moonlight spilling down in silver ribbons.

A shiver runs through me at the loss of what little warmth the campfire provided, and I tug the flannel tight around myself.

I keep my steps light while weaving through broken beams and walls. It doesn’t take long to find him.

He’s maybe fifty feet from camp, crouching in shadows between two jagged slabs of concrete. Moonlight catches on the pale fall of his hair where it spills across half his face. He’s curled against a rusted support post with his knees pulled to his chest and his arms wrapped around them.

His pain is so palpable, it flows through me as though it were my own. To see him slink off into the shadows alone like this.

Rocking.

Muttering.

“No, no, that’s not real. Stay away. Don’t go…” The words come out soft and choked as he breaks apart.

He doesn’t see me.

I crouch in front of him and keep my voice barely above a whisper. “Caspian.”

No reaction. No sign he heard me. His hands clench into trembling fists until his knuckles go white. “Don’t. Please. I’m sorry.”

My heart splinters for this broken man I hardly know. I hesitate before reaching forward to press my palm against his cheek. “Hey, Caspian. Look at me.”

His skin is ice cold. His jaw tightens beneath my fingers and his breath hitches, but no response.

I lean in closer and press a soft kiss to his forehead. “Hey. You’re safe,” I whisper against his cool, clammy skin. “You’re not there. You’re here, Caspian. Here with me, Autumn.”

A flicker. His eyelids twitch but don’t open. His mouth parts and I wait for him to speak, but no words come. His whole body stays locked.

I slide my hand from his cheek to one of his fists, then guide it up to my face, letting his frozen knuckles brush along my jaw. “Feel that, Caspian? I’m real. I’m here. Come back to me.”

His breath stutters again, then shifts and evens out. His other hand lifts blindly, thumb pressing feather-light against my wrist, right over Jace’s bandage. The touch is gentle. Nothing like how he’s hurting himself.

When his eyes blink open, they’re wide and stormy, filled with terror and shame.

I shake my head before he can speak. “You don’t have to be okay right now, Cas. You just have to be here.”

His eyes close again, but this time, there’s no flinch. Only my name, falling from his lips in a rough whisper: “Autumn.”

We stay like that for a while, wrapped in the quiet darkness. Little by little, the chill leaves his skin.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice pained.

“For what?”

He shakes his head and opens his eyes, finally meeting my gaze. “For you having to see that. I usually handle it fine on my own.”

“Yeah?” I arch a brow. “Because it didn’t look like you were handling anything fine tonight. Hasn’t anyone ever tried to help you before?”

His smile is sad. “Jace and Mars tried more than anyone. I always pushed them away, though. Though dealing with it alone was better. Safer. Eventually…they stopped trying.”

“You’re not pushing me away,” I point out.

There’s a pause, then something shifts in his eyes. “You’re right. I’m not.”

“Is that why you came out here? To get away from everyone? ”

He nods and rests his cheek against my palm. “Didn’t want to wake anyone. I’m tired of feeling like my past owns me. Thought maybe if I faced it alone, I could fight it.” He laughs once, but it’s dry and joyless. “Guess it won.”

When he doesn’t elaborate, I try to make sense of this so I can help him. “Caspian. What happened in the alley?”

“The darkness won.”

“No, it didn’t.” I keep my voice gentle. “You disappeared, but then you came back. You did that then, and you’re doing it now.”

There’s a few moments of silence where I wait for him to speak, but he doesn’t.

I ask, “You’re not a fan of the dark, are you?”

His jaw tightens. “Bad things happen in the dark.”

I brush my thumb along his skin, trying to give him comfort.

He draws a shaky breath. “When we were trapped in that alley, the darkness triggered something worse. It closed in…and I heard the voices again.”

“Whose voices?”

His eyes fill with sorrow. Tears threaten to fall, but it’s his voice breaking when he speaks that undoes me. “Their voices from the night my brother died saving me from our parents. The night they finally decided to kill me.”

“Caspian…” His name catches in my throat. I throw my arms around him.

He wraps his arms around my back and pulls me into his lap. I straddle his hips without a second thought, ignoring the broken gravel digging into my knees. That doesn’t matter right now.

All that matters is him.

“I heared their voices in that alley. Saw their faces the same way they looked that night. Angry. Wild. Like I was nothing.”

He exhales against the loose strands of my hair .

“They used to call me Casper. Said I was more ghost than boy. Too afraid of the world to exist in it.”

My fingers twist through his hair, helpless to offer anything but touch.

“I’ll never understand it,” he whispers. “But I do know this. The dead don’t scare me half as much as the living once did.”

Something sharp blazes through me. My throat tightens, and so does my hug.

He buries his face in my hair and continues. “The day the dead rose was the best day of my life. It meant I could finally run without anything holding me back, but it didn’t matter. The past always catches up. At least rotters and dregs are tame compared to those horrors.”

I sniffle. My own eyes burn.

He lets out a hollow chuckle. “I watched them die, and they still haunt me more than anything else ever has.”

I press my lips to the side of his neck in a light kiss, trying to give him some form of comfort. This sweet man has been carrying around more than I could have ever realized. “Sometimes the ones who are supposed to protect us hurt us most.”

“They called me Casper because of my hair, my eyes, and the crippling anxiety they bestowed upon me. That’s what I was hearing in the alley.”

Something feral and foreign courses through me. An emotion I haven’t felt in a long time. For the first time in ages, fear and heartbreak don’t encompass my body. Instead, anger and white-hot fury blaze in my chest.

I fist his hoodie at his back, ignoring the slight stab of pain in my wrist. “Your parents make me so angry I could kill them myself with my bare hands, sprained wrist or not.”

A faint huff of laughter blows strands of hair across my face, and I tilt my head back to look up. Caspian is looking over my head with his eyes unfocused. “Good news. My brother already did. Before he bled out.”

My hands tremble at the thought of someone hurting this man, and I have to force my body to calm down. At least they canno longer hurt anyone ever again.

I lift myself up so I’m straddling his lap with my knees still digging into the gravel. My hands settle on his shoulders, our faces level. His pale blue eyes look haunted when they match my gaze.

“You didn’t deserve any of it. Neither did your brother, but I’m glad you had him because I can’t imagine you not being here today,” I say. “I wouldn’t still be here without you.”

“Without me?” His lips twitch, bittersweet. “You would have made more liquor bombs and blown up the whole city by now.”

“I’d take that alley again, if it meant going through it with you.”

His pale eyes soften, and his voice drops. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough to know that you deserve so much more than the world gave you.”

His smile is fragile. “I know what it’s like to lose a sibling. I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone. I swear to you, I’ll do everything in my power to help you get her back.”

A small chuckle escapes me. “Summer has no idea how lucky she is to have three god-like men scouring the earth for her.”

His gaze darkens, and his thumb traces my jaw with aching reverence. “We’re not doing this for her,” he says, his voice quiet. “We’re doing this for you. Because you deserve to have your world put back together, and if finding Summer does that…”

He leans his forehead against mine, and his breath warms my lips. So close, yet so far .

“Then we’ll tear apart every corner of this dead world until we bring her home to you, and no ghosts of the dead will stop us,” he finishes.

My breath catches when his words crash through me. Fierce, protective, but wrapped in such tenderness, it leaves me aching. Something I never thought I could feel from another person.

He’s the one breaking tonight, and still, he’s promising me the world.

“You three…” My voice wavers. “You’re the first decent men I’ve met in years. II don’t know how I ended up with three of you being too damn stubborn to leave.”

He pulls back and gives me a real smile this time. It’s the first genuine smile I’ve seen on him.

He brushes a strand of hair behind my ears and looks at me in a way that makes my belly flutter to life.

“Well, it’s hard to walk away from a pretty girl who steals socks from unconscious strangers, throws homemade explosives at rotters while running around a rot zone injured, and still follows a broken man alone in the dark to chase away his demons. ”

“You’re not broken, Cas.”

His fingers thread through my hair before resting on my shoulder. “And you’re stronger than you think.”

My heart stutters and my breath shivers.

He leans in, and before I know it, his lips brush mine, soft and hesitant. A kiss full of question and hope.

I melt into him, answering with my own. His mouth moves gently against mine, and warmth floods through me, chasing away the chill.

When his tongue teases at the seam of my lips, I let him in, deepening the kiss. It’s soft, reverent, and over too soon.

When he pulls back, his eyes search mine with a sheepish look. My cheeks heat along with the rest of my body.

“Was that okay?” he asks .

I smile and lean in to kiss him again, slower this time. “That was great, Cas.” Then my brain catches up and focuses on a specific detail from our conversation. “Wait, you said I was pretty?”

A laugh bubbles out of him, real and warm. It lights his whole face, and I know I want to hear it again.

He pulls me close, crushing me to his chest in a way that feels both safe and strong.

I don’t fight it. I let myself sink into his warmth.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, I realize…

I’ve been so focused on chasing their smiles and laughter, I almost didn’t notice when mine started coming back.

The thought hits me hard enough to spin the world for a moment.

In the end, it’s simple. The calming thrum of Caspian’s heart beneath my cheek, the heat of his skin, and the strength of his arms…they anchor me.

And wrapped in them, I finally let myself drift to sleep.