Page 8

JACE

T he fire still burns strong behind me, but I can’t look at it anymore. Too much heat. Too many memories coiled in the flames, whispering things I don’t want to remember. I need to move, to busy my hands with something else. Something that could help us rather than destroy.

The hinges groan when I pop the hood. I wipe sweat and grime from my brow and lean in.

The engine bay’s a disaster. It’s all half-melted wires, a radiator hose is held on with a zip tie, and there’s a cracked belt fraying like old rope.

Not to mention the blackened fuse, probably been hotwired one too many times.

I couldn’t have picked a vehicle in worse shape.

This thing is being held together with rust, spit, and prayer.

Perfect.

It would be easier to find another vehicle in better condition, but this is better than sitting by the fire, letting it whisper memories into the back of my skull where the ghosts live.

So, I tighten a bolt that doesn’t need tightening, and twist a hose clamp that’s already stripped.

Anything to avoid going back to the fire I shouldn’t have been near in the first place.

I’m elbow-deep in a useless patch job when I hear her approach.

“Jace,” her voice slices through the quiet and cuts right through the noise in my head, and the rising chaos that always takes over when I’m alone.

I straighten and blink into the shadows. Autumn steps out from the gap in the broken wall, silhouetted in the dying light. Her hair is mussed from sleep, or lack of it, and her posture is stiff. She carries a gas can in one hand, the cracked red plastic jostling against her leg when she walks.

Even disheveled and hurt, she’s beautiful. The thought hits me before I can stop it, and I shove it down hard. I can’t afford to think about the way the fading light catches in her hair, or how her determined stride makes something tighten in my chest.

She stops a few feet away, her fingers curling tight around the handle. “Can’t sleep?”

“Can’t shut my brain off,” I say, rolling my shoulders to shake loose the tension.

She holds out the jug. “Found this stashed in what used to be a maintenance closet. Smells like actual gasoline.”

I take it from her, careful not to let our fingers brush again. The weight’s decent, half full, maybe more. Enough to get us somewhere. Maybe not far, but far enough. “You couldn’t sleep, either?”

She shrugs, then winces. Her wrist must still be screaming despite the wrap I put on earlier.

I wish I had more things that could help, but supplies are limited out here.

She’s going to be in pain for a while longer, and that bothers me more than it should.

“I was already up. Thought I’d search the shelter and check the perimeter,” she says.

I should tell her not to wander off alone. That it’s dangerous, and she’s not healed yet. All the excuses that run to the tip of my tongue. Instead, I nod. “Lucky find.”

A grin tugs at her lips. It’s small, bright, and unfairly effective. Her hazel eyes light up and drift to my mouth. “You’re smiling,” she says.

“I am not.” I summon my best scowl.

She laughs. No one has ever laughed at my scowl before. “You kind of are.”

I shake my head and turn back to the car, but my mouth betrays me and lifts again. Dammit.

She makes me smile. That’s a problem. I don’t want to smile.

Smiling means softening.

Softening means losing focus.

And losing focus gets people killed.

I’ve seen what happens when I start letting people in.

When I start hoping.

When I start caring.

People die.

I won’t let anyone get hurt for getting too close to me. Not again.

I glance over my shoulder. She’s watching me, and I mean really watching, with that look again.

Like she’s trying to read something I haven’t said.

She saw it back at the fire when I wrapped her wrist, and she sees it now.

The way I’m drawn to her despite every instinct screaming at me to keep my distance.

She doesn’t push, but I do, because that’s what I do best. Detonate things before they can get dangerous. After all, explosions are our specialty.

“He kissed you.”

Her expression stutters, then jolts. “What? He didn’t mean to. He thought I was someone else, maybe dreaming, maybe delirious. I don’t know.”

“I know,” I say, but I don’t stop. Because I need to push her away before I pull her into the cold shadows with me and get her hurt. The only way to keep others safe is for me to hurt alone. “He’s lucky.”

Her brow furrows. “To be alive?”

I uncap the gas can and start pouring it into the tank. The slosh of fuel is the only sound for a moment. “To be looked at like that. To be held like he matters.”

The words taste bitter. What I really want to say is that I’m jealous as hell watching her care for Mars.

Jealous of how gently she touched his face, how she cradled him against her chest. I want to know what it feels like to be held by someone who gives a damn whether I live or die, but that can never happen.

Her breath catches, then she fires back. “First of all, you all matter. So whatever pity party you’re hosting, you can shut it down, because I’m not attending.”

I slide the nozzle out of the tank and set the can on the ground.

“Second of all,” she continues, “whatever you think is happening here, it’s not.

I’m here for one reason, and that’s to find my sister.

I’ve dealt with dregs, almost died more times than I can count, and I’ve fought against men twice your size who thought I was an easy target.

” My muscles coil at that, and I want to find all these men and rip their heads off with my bare hands, but I keep my expression cool and neutral.

“Hell, in the last twenty-four hours alone, I’ve dodged bullets, jumped off a roof, and ran through a rotter- infested city while throwing around homemade explosives.

Whatever it is you’re looking for, it’s not me. ”

I face her and lift my hands in surrender. “Whoa. Okay. Some wires definitely got crossed.” No, they didn’t .

Her jaw clenches, and her shoulders rise up and back.

“Believe me,” I say, leveling my tone, “when I say I’m not interested in anything you’re offering. I’m here to do a job. That job just so happens to be about you.”

The lie burns my throat. I’m interested in everything about her. Her fierce independence, her refusal to give up on her sister, the way she throws herself into danger without hesitation. Her ability to toss explosives around like confetti and not even flinch.

I’m interested in the soft sounds she made when Mars kissed her, and I hate myself for wanting to hear them directed at me.

The only thing this new world has brought me is darkness, and she’s the first beam of light I’ve come across.

I don’t actually know her yet, and I don’t even give a damn how cheesy that sounds.

Her gaze sharpens.

“Not like that,” I rush to clarify. “I mean, I was sent to find you. Keep you alive and keep you safe. That’s it. I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep.”

She looks pissed now. Good. A pissed Autumn won’t keep trying to make me fucking smile, and won’t keep looking at me like I’m worth saving. “Things would be a lot easier for you if you hadn’t interfered with the sniper,” she says, her eyes challenging me.

“Not really, because then I wouldn’t have been able to keep my promise of keeping you safe.”

We fall into silence. Her eyes flash, maybe in anger. She turns to stalk off, but her wrapped wrist clips the corner of the hood. “Shit,” she hisses out, clutching her arm. “Dammit.”

I reach out without thinking. My fingers circle her forearm, and I lift her hand to examine it in the dying light. Her skin is warm under my touch, and I have to fight the urge to trace my thumb across her pulse point.

Her Gemini tattoo peeks out beneath the bandage edge. Two lines crossing another. A mark for duality. For two halves that belong together. “We’ll find her,” I say, my voice quiet. “I promise.”

She studies me. Her face is unreadable in the shadows, but her voice is softer now. “That’s a difficult promise to keep.”

I lift my gaze to meet her eyes. They’re hazel with little flecks of gold that catch the last bit of sun, and I have to resist the urge to memorize every detail.

My mind goes haywire around this woman, and that alone frustrates me to no end.

“I know, but like I said. I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep. ”

What I don’t tell her is that I’d tear this whole dead world apart to help her find her sister. That somewhere between watching her fight rotters with a sprained wrist because she refused to leave my friends for dead, and seeing her care for Mars like he mattered, she got under my skin.

The truth is, I’m already in deeper than I’ve ever intended. And that terrifies me.