Page 7

Silence settles around us. He doesn’t fill it, sitting there with patience and fire reflected in his dark eyes.

“I heard one of them say something about selling her.” My eyes close for a second, then I take a shuddering breath. “I’ve been looking ever since. She disappeared nearby. It’s been a few weeks, but I’m not giving up.”

“Does that have anything to do with those explosions I saw?” he asks, adjusting the bandage around my wrist.

I nod. “I was trying to clear out the rotters so I could search. Hard to look for clues when you’re dodging the dead every five minutes.” A small smile tugs at my lips. “I’m a big fan of molotov cocktails.”

His mouth twitches, but not in amusement. “That’s one thing we don’t have in common.”

Jace leans back and turns his face toward the crackling fire.

The glow paints his features in flickering orange, highlighting his unkempt hair.

He looks harder in the light. There’s grief in the lines around his eyes I hadn’t noticed before he looked at the flames.

“Is that why someone tried to kill you today? The sniper?”

“Could be.” I shrug. “Maybe someone doesn’t want me asking questions, or maybe I pissed off the wrong people. Could’ve been someone who sees hunting people as a sport. I won’t know unless I talk to him.”

“Yeah,” he says, “that’s not going to happen.”

I glance sideways at him. “Why?”

“Because I killed him.”

I stare at him with incredulity. Did the sniper try to kill these guys, too? “Again…why?”

He turns to face me. His eyes don’t flinch. “Because he tried to kill you.”

I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off .

“You’re not the only one carrying ghosts,” he says, his voice softer now. Sad, even.

I study his face. The strong jaw, dark eyes, and the scar that acts like punctuation for his expression. “That scar through your brow…bullet?”

He exhales through his nose. “Fire.”

I blink. “You have a thing about fire?”

His gaze shifts to the flames, jaw tightening. “Yeah. It triggers things. Memories I’d rather forget.” Then his gaze flicks to me. “Thanks for helping, by the way. You didn’t have to.”

I shrug and play with the hem of my shirt that’s already lost an inch today. “You didn’t have to help me get out of the city.”

“Yeah, I did.” He looks up at the sky, signaling the end of that.

His words fall between us like coals. Low, heavy, and smoldering beneath the surface. For a second, something shifts in him. His shoulders drop. His eyes dull. He looks so tired it hurts to see. Not physically, but deep-down tired that lives in bone and breath.

He doesn’t sigh, slump, or break, but I see it. The moment he lets himself feel the pressure of keeping three broken people alive—four, including himself.

Then he pulls it all back inside, straightens, and reinforces whatever walls I wasn’t meant to see through.

That’s when I understand. He’ll burn himself to ash before he’s let anyone else go cold.

Without thinking, I reach out with my good hand and wrap my fingers around his. His head turns toward me, dark eyes hardening again. I give him a small smile. “Thanks, Jace. We’re all alive because of you.”

He doesn’t respond right away, but a faint smile flickers across his lips before disappearing like it was never there. “I’m sorry for the life you left behind when the dead rose, and that it wasn’t as good as you deserve. For what it’s worth, I care if you live, Autumn.”

When I pull away, his fingers hold on to mine for a second longer before letting go. And for the first time, I care if three more people live, too.

Mars is burning up. I’ve already stripped off the two jackets we covered him with and peeled back the tarp, but heat still rolls off him in waves, thick and suffocating.

Sweat glistens on his brow, trickling down to mat his dark hair against his temples.

His skin is flushed, lips cracked, and a pale crust forms at the corners from dehydration.

I grab the only clean rag we’ve got and dunk it into our precious drinking water, then crouch beside him.

“Don’t you dare die on me,” I whisper, sliding my arms under him. I lift him into my lap, bracing his back against my chest. He’s heavier than I expect, nothing but solid muscle and dead weight, but I manage to shift him without jostling his head too much, angling him just right.

His skin is almost scorching beneath my fingertips. Even unconscious, his body twitches with discomfort, jaw clenching like he’s grinding his teeth through some distant fight. His brows furrow as if he’s battling something in his dreams.

“Whatever you’re dreaming about, I hope you’re enjoying it, because we had to drag your unconscious ass all around a rot zone.

Although, that’s only because I went into the city and you ran after me, but that’s only because someone was shooting at me.

Then again, you freaked me out by promising safety and socializing.

Who does that? We can go in circles over this all night.

The point is—well, I lost the point. This conversation isn’t as fun when you’re not awake for me to chastise. ”

This infuriating man put himself through hell to save my life. He better live, because I refuse to have his death on my conscience.

I press the cool, damp cloth to his forehead, and his body exhales beneath my hands.

The tension in his shoulders unspools as I drag the cloth down his face.

Over his sharp cheekbones, the stubble along his jaw, and the curve of his throat.

His pulse flutters fast beneath the surface, hammering like his body still thinks it’s in battle.

His breathing slows. Not much. But enough.

“That’s better,” I whisper.

I adjust him higher on my thigh so he’s more secure.

My fingers slide into his thick black hair, which is somehow even darker than his pitch-black eyes, and I push damp strands from his face.

It’s softer than I thought it would be. Softer than he appears.

Without thinking, I trace the line of his jaw.

There’s something magnetic about this man, even now when he’s unconscious and vulnerable.

Something that makes my heart stutter in ways that have nothing to do with worry.

His eyes flutter open. They’re dark, glassy, and unfocused, but they land on me. Like he searched me out. He blinks as though he’s seeing a memory, not a person. Or maybe he’s trying to decide which I am. His gaze slips shut again and lashes brush his cheeks, but his hand moves.

His fingers are slow and shaky when they reach up and curl behind my neck. His palm is warm against my skin, and the touch sends an unexpected shiver down my spine.

I tense, but let him pull me closer.

“Mars,” I breathe, my voice barely above a whisper in an attempt to soothe him. “Hey, I’m right here. You’re okay. We’re safe now.”

His lips brush mine before I finish speaking. It’s a feather-light kiss full of warmth and heat and sleep and vulnerability. It’s not desperate, more like he’s dreaming this and isn’t ready to wake himself up.

“Purple,” he whispers against my lips.

For a second, I don’t move.

For a second, I let myself feel it. Let my lips move against his.

Only once, though.

His lips are warm, and his breath catches against mine. Something flutters in my chest. Something foolish and reckless that doesn’t belong in a world where the dead walk and my sister is still missing. But God, it feels good to be touched gently, to be wanted, even in his fevered delirium.

Then reality crashes back in.

I jerk away with a sharp gasp. His head drops onto the makeshift pillow, made of a bundle of old, dirty clothing we’d arranged for him earlier. I cringe at the impact. “Oh, shit. Sorry,” I say.

He doesn’t stir. He sinks deeper into sleep like nothing happened.

I sit frozen with my breath shallow and eyes locked on him. My fingers hover over my mouth where his kiss still lingers. Gentle. Soft. Everything I didn’t expect from someone so bold and confident when awake.

My stomach swoops, and I hate that it does. Now isn’t the time for this. Not when Summer is still out there, waiting for me to rescue her. Not when I need to keep my focus.

“Glad to know you’re not dead,” Jace says behind me. His voice is dry as the concrete floor we sit on. “But if she gave you a concussion, you probably deserve it.”

I whip around to see Jace standing a few feet away.

One shoulder is propped against a cracked beam with his arms folded across his broad chest and sleeves pushed up over strong forearms with bulging veins.

The firelight carves shadows into the lines of his face, but there’s no mistaking the smug smirk playing on his lips.

Even teasing me, he’s unfairly handsome.

“Shit. Do you really think I gave him a concussion?”

Jace’s expression shifts. His gaze moves from Mars to me, and that teasing edge softens. “No, I don’t. He’ll be fine. Pillow’s doing its job.”

A flush creeps up my neck that has nothing to do with the nearby fire. “It wasn’t…he didn’t…I mean, he didn’t know what he was doing. He was asleep.”

Jace lifts both hands, palms outward. “Hey,” he says. “Not judging. No explanation needed.”

He walks past us and drops into a crouch beside the fire, poking at the embers with a stick before feeding it to the flames. They crackle higher, and he flinches back before settling into a seated position an extra foot away from the heat.

The firelight flickers along his jawline, illuminating the stubble there, the slope of his nose, the furrow that forms when he’s focused. I swear his smirk deepens when he adds, “That’ll be fun to sort out when he wakes up, though. Well, if he remembers.”

I plant both palms on my thighs and let out a slow exhale.

My heart still pounds. Heat travels down my spine, nerves sparking like I’ve been thrown into the fire.

I glance down at Mars. He’s breathing easier now.

His hand curls against his chest, and there’s something almost peaceful about him that calms my racing pulse.

But it’s more than that. It’s the way Jace watches over us all with those intense dark eyes.

The way Mars risked himself to save me, more than once.

The way even broken Caspian tried to protect us in that alley.

All things no one else has ever bothered to do for me.

These men are dangerous in more ways than one.

Dangerous to rotters. Dangerous to anyone who threatens what they care about.

And dangerous to my carefully guarded heart.

For the first time, I wonder what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.