Page 19 of I’m The Worst

Her eyes finally find mine. Then she lunges. I catch her wrists before she can slam into me, holding her at arm’s length. She breaks down, sobbing, fighting my hold with weak, frantic strength.

“Please,” she chokes. “Please, don’t leave me.”

I release her immediately and step back. She pitches forward again, reaching out blindly, fingers hooking the hem of my shirt and slipping underneath. They brush my skin. My stomach muscles seize as a violent jolt shoots through me—skin crawling, every nerve screaming at the unwanted contact. I push her off. Her breath hitches, hands still clawing for me.

“I need you. Please.”

She stumbles after me, unsteady on her feet and reaching for my neck. My fists curl, and I shove her shoulders. Blinking, dazed, she licks her lips. Her hands slide down her body before she pulls her shirt over her head, exposing her small tits. Her eyes lock on mine.

“Make it stop hurting, Wolff,” she begs me.

Jaw grinding, I turn for the door, and her fingers clamp around my wrist. My body reacts before my brain does. I wrench free so roughly, she stumbles.

“Don’t. Ever.”

She freezes.

I flex my hand. “You don’t grab me.”

“Pl-please…Wolff. I need you. Just one more time.”

She’s a fucking mess. Naked. Half-asleep, half-crazed. Pale. Hair tangled. “I’m done with this shit. Go to sleep.”

Returning to the living room, I drop into a chair, the wood groaning under my weight. Opening my laptop, the screen lights the dark.

Her file fills the screen.

I don’t remember opening it: Autumn Jane Weston, “AJ”, twenty-two. Daughter of Commander Nate Weston. Twin brother Gage, a rookie Sovereign fresh out of recruit training.

I stare at the photo. She’s smiling, head tilted slightly, sunlight catching in her light brown wavy hair and making her hazel eyes glow with warmth. A dimple presses into her left cheek.

The girl in the picture looks nothing like the one in the next room.

I already know this file.

Every timestamp. Every surveillance still. Every lead that went cold. Eleven weeks of chasing ghosts. Until I found her on that fucking stage.

My thumb pauses over her picture.

The door creaks open. Cold air ripples through the cabin. Snow blows in across the floor. Savva steps inside, stomping off his boots, shotgun slung over his shoulder.

“Perimeter sensor batteries are still working. Checked the ones I could reach without the snowmobile. We’re good for now.”

I slam the laptop shut. This mission needs to end.

Standing, I grab my coat. “You’re on watch.”

Savva’s eyes flick to the hallway. Then to me. “What happened?”

I crack my neck, and I take the snowmobile keys off the table. “I’ll check the rest of the sensors. Radio if you need me.”

He exhales, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “If we get another storm like this, the truck won’t make the journey. We need to leave soon. Think she can make the trip in the next day or so?”

Fuck.

It’s a six-day drive to the nearest safe zone. Eighteen hours on a plane after that to get her back to Chicago. That’s if everything goes smoothly.

It won’t.