In the quiet space behind the curtain of bloody hair, Cass pressed his lips to the place below Riot’s ear where the pulse hammered.
“You’re okay,” he whispered. So quiet Sage couldn’t hear it. So quiet the dead men couldn’t hear it. Only for Riot, who was shaking apart under his hands. “You’re okay. And I love you.”
The shaking hitched.
Riot’s hands came down from his face. Slowly, like they weighed more than hands should weigh. His eyes were red-rimmed and green and wet and wrecked and looking at Cass like Cass was the most terrifying thing on this road—more terrifying than the bodies, more terrifying than the gold, more terrifying than whatever he saw when he looked at his own hands.
“I love you too, princess,” Riot said. His voice was raw. Scraped out. But he said it.
Cass held on.
Chapter thirty-four
Infiltration Strategies for the Injured, Sick, and Stupidly in Love
Riot
Theyabandonedthecarsfive miles out, tucked behind the collapsed shell of a gas station where kudzu ate everything but the pumps.
Sage killed her engine first, already out and checking sightlines before Riot finished processing what stopping meant. His hands didn’t want to release the steering wheel. His handsdidn’t want to do much of anything, actually, except shake with a fine tremor that had started somewhere around mile three and was now running through him like current through bad wiring.
Post-episode crash.Adrenal depletion, muscle fatigue, probable dehydration. Should have eaten something. Should have done a lot of things.
“We walk from here,” Sage said through the driver’s side window, her voice pitched low out of habit even though the nearest living thing was a turkey vulture circling a quarter mile up. “We need vehicles for the return trip, it’s better to leave them.”
Riot knew she was right. He also knew that standing up was going to be a problem.
Cass was already out of the passenger side, moving like his arm existed purely to remind him that pain was a thing. After getting his arm back into place (and Cass’s cry of pain nearly triggering another episode), Sage fashioned a sling from her spare shirt that looked almost professional in the late afternoon light. The kit she had with her was meant for field medicine, not permanent fixes, so the bandages on Cass’s hands, hip, and feet were hastily slapped on.
From your hands. Some of those are from your hands.
He shoved the thought down, felt it land on the pile of things he was not going to think about right now, and opened the door.
Standing went about as well as expected. The world tilted sideways, righted itself with a lurch, and then settled into a gentle rotation that made him think his inner ear and his legs were no longer on speaking terms. The twelve stitches across his ribs pulled when he straightened—Sage’s work, neat and functional, the kind of stitching that saidI learned this on people who couldn’t lie still.The wound underneath pulsed with his heartbeat like a dull, red metronome.
“You look terrible,” Sage observed.
“I look like a Berserker who just walked through the Static Zone,” Riot replied. “Which is convenient, since that’s exactly what I am.”
“You look like a Berserker who’s about to fall down.”
“That too.”
Cass appeared at his side—not touching, because they’d agreed on no visible intimacy within potential surveillance range, but close enough that Riot could feel the warmth of him like a banked fire. Close enough that the bite mark at the base of Riot’s neck hummed. His chest tightened, like a clenched fist sitting behind his sternum with a worry that didn’t quite feel like his own.
The five miles took two hours.
It should have taken one, but Riot’s body decided that forward momentum was a privilege, not a right, and kept renegotiating the terms. His vision went gray around the edges at mile two. By mile three, Sage quietly repositioned herself on his left side while Cass walked on his right, so that if he listed in either direction, someone would nudge him upright before he hit the ground.
He was a former super-soldier being shepherded by a five-foot-eight Omega in a sling and a five-foot-two Null with moss-green hair and the expression of someone trying very hard not to sayI told you so.
This is fine, Riot thought.This is completely fine. I have torn apart several men with my hands, driven through hostile territory, I have twelve stitches and no painkillers, and I am now being walked to church like a toddler who got into the communion wine. Absolutely fine.
Cass made a small, worried sound beside him when his foot caught on a chunk of buckled asphalt.
“I’m fine,” Riot said.
“You’re listing,” Sage said.
