“I’m okay,” I whispered. “I promise.”
He pulled back just enough to search my face. His eyes looked wrecked. Raw.
I reached up and tugged him down.
The kiss wasn’t delicate. It was desperate, messy, filled with fire and fear and every emotion that had nearly ripped me apart.
Catcalls echoed. Someone let out a long whistle.
When I broke the kiss, breathless and flushed, my eyes flicked across the group.
Jack was watching Remi.
But Remi... wasn’t watching back.
She was staring off into the trees with a look I couldn’t quite name.
Loneliness. Longing. Maybe even heartbreak.
And it shattered something in me.
Everyone began to move, gathering gear, cleaning weapons, and prepping for the ride out. The air was shifting, softening.
Four made his way over to Remi and wrapped her in a careful hug. She didn’t flinch.
“You sure you don’t want to come stay with us, Princess?” he asked. “We’ll get you patched up. Keep you safe.”
Remi sighed into his shoulder. Her arms were loose around him, like she wanted to melt into someone, just for a second.
She looked so small in his arms.
Her voice was soft, but sure. “Thanks, Four... but I’m not hiding anymore. I’ve got too much work to do. I’m needed.”
He started to respond, but she kept going. “And besides...” She pulled back and looked around the clearing, her eyes sweeping overwhat was left of the fire and fury. “If I hide away..., how will he find me?”
Four’s brow furrowed. “Who?”
She turned her face to me then. Her smile was big and sad and somehow devastating. “My happily ever after,” she said. “I have something to believe in now.”
I turned to look at the spot where Jack had been standing.
But he was gone.
CHAPTER 76
AVA - OUR SANCTUARY
The sun cut across my pillow like it didn’t care the world had almost ended last week.
I blinked, groggy, one arm tossed over the other side of the bed like maybe Remi had just slipped out for coffee. But the apartment was too quiet. No humming, no grumbling, no muttered swearing about a bad dream or a worse memory.
Just silence.
I sat up slowly, stiff. My ribs still ached when I breathed too deeply, my shins, calves and feet tender where bruises bloomed under the skin and cuts were barely healing. But it wasn’t the pain that woke me; it was the guilt.
The memory of blood on my hands, real and warm. The way the man’s eyes looked when he realized I wasn’t bluffing. The way the air went still after the trigger pull. How I didn’t hesitate, how I couldn’t.
I had done what I had to do.
