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Slowly, I propped myself up on my elbows and shimmied until I was completely in his lap. I wrapped my good arm around his neck, pressed my forehead to his, and kissed him.

It was slow and tentative at first as he let me take the lead. But the taste of him wiped away the feeling of Yutu on me. I pushed forward, sweeping my tongue across his to remind myself what a real kiss felt like. When I felt him poking me beneath my thighs, I pulled back.

Who knew about the future? He was right. But in this moment, right here? I loved Austin Cooper. And I told him so.

“I owe you an apology as well,” I admitted. “Accepting your help doesn’t make me weak. It makes me smart. I was just so used to fighting to be believed and dealing with thick-headed people that I guess it became an auto-response.”

“I can be thick-headed.” Austin pressed his forehead to mine to demonstrate, and I laughed.

“From now on we work as a team,” I promised.

“We need to get him to the track. We only have an hour left,” he said, bringing us back to the task at hand.

“He wants me. Bad,” I said.

“But he’s terrified of the guns.”

“And the crystals.” I wished I hadn’t lost my bag when Yutu attacked.

“He’s a coward. He likes to inflict fear in his victims, probably feeds off it, but he can’t take what he dishes out.”

I nodded. “He’s a classic bully, but to the extreme.”

“So I’ll find him and lead him up to the top,” Austin said.

My body slumped with disappointment. “Austin, I thought we’d been through this. He wants me.”

“I know.” He knocked his forehead against mine and stroked my face. “So you’ll be his prize up there since you can’t climb fast enough. But you have to get up there and hide the others. He can’t have a sense that anything else is threatening him or he won’t take the bait.”

Austin pulled out what looked like a stun gun and handed it to me. “Here. Take it. You can defend yourself this way.”

I started to protest.

“And protect the others,” he added so I’d stop. “I’m going to use my acting skills. People hire me for to act all the time even though it’s not what I love to do. I hear I’m pretty good at it.”

I kissed him again, for luck, before standing. “Don’t let it get to your head. But how are you planning to draw him out again?”

Austin deflated. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to think of something that would lure him out. But I’ve got nothing.”

“I have an idea,” I said, the excitement of a new plan bubbling up inside me. “He keeps talking in my head. What if it works both ways?”