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I leaned forward, pushing against Roark’s arm. “The van that Shea’s in stays here, too.”
Too bad Shea couldn’t sense aphids. I might’ve considered sending her ahead to see if she could feel them.
“Fuck.” Link’s nostrils flared. “Fine. Get off me, asshole.”
Jesse slid back to the passenger seat and sheathed the blade inside his leather jacket. Link remained pressed against the door with his hand around his throat, and only when Jesse gave him a curt chin lift did he grab his crossbow and exit the van.
He waved his arms at the waiting vehicles, directing them where to go. Seven of the eight trucks whipped by. The van that held Shea pulled behind us and parked, and the last truck picked up Link along the way.
I blew out a heavy breath. All the men had been given a description of Michio. They knew what the mission was and most importantly, they knew not to kill him unless he’d been compromised. I chose not to acknowledge that possibility.
Roark shifted around me and slid behind the wheel, turning the key and shutting off the ignition.
I knelt on the floor between them and met Jesse’s eyes. Darkness edged his expression, but when I blinked, it was gone.
There was a quiet kind of brutality in this man, a ruthlessness concealed beneath the leather, like his knife. He wasn’t pompous or mouthy or reckless, so it was easy to underestimate him. Until it was too late. He was a man who feared nothing. Except my death.
I wished I could unburden him of that worry, but the most predictable, certain thing about this life was death. No one could escape it. “A machete? You’re full of surprises.”
“Says the woman who can blow up aphids with her mind.” His lips twitched, and he grabbed me beneath the arms and hauled me into his lap. “It’s a khukuri not a machete, darlin’.”
Sitting sideways across his thighs, I pulled open his jacket. The curved blade tucked securely in a leather sheath, beneath his arm. “What other weapons are you hiding?”
Roark rubbed his jaw, his eyes roaming my body. “Wha’ has gotten into ye?”
“Nothing at the moment, but we have ten minutes to fix that.”
Jesse pinched my chin, angling my head toward him. “Seriously, Evie. Something’s up. We’re not complaining—”
“Definitely no complaints.” Roark grinned.
“—but you’re insatiable. You’ve always been a sexual creature, and Christ, I love that about you.” Jesse lifted his hips and nudged himself against my ass. “But this is a whole other level. Do you feel different? Have you noticed any other changes?”
I gripped his hand and held it between mine in my lap. “I don’t know. I’m hungrier. Hornier.” I peeked up at his hooded expression and looked down at our hands. “I have so much energy I feel like I’m bursting with it.”
Roark draped his arm over the steering wheel, his expression thoughtful as he gazed out the windshield. He opened his mouth to say something, then squinted, his posture snapping straight as one of our delivery trucks came speeding down the street toward us.
He rolled down the window, and the black truck skidded to a stop beside us.
Link leaned over the door, deep grooves lining his forehead. “It’s gone.”
My heart raced. “What’s gone?”
“Your house. It’s burnt to the ground.”
I stared at the black hole that had once been my house, my gaze stumbling over singed wood beams and melted glass windows and twisted metal railings. Grief, fury, and harrowing pain scorched through my veins and burned my lungs, laboring my breaths, made worse with the inhalation of black dust.
It was just a house. A house that had been designed by Joel and me, the foundation poured with our dreams, the walls strengthened with the laughter of our children, and the roof buttressed with our love. Before the plague, I’d never envisioned leaving it. But when I was chased away, forced to abandon it, I’d carried with me a seed of comfort that the house was here, sheltering the archives of my past life like an impenetrable vault.
With no one around to put out the fire, there was no roof, not a single wall left standing, the foundation crushed beneath the destruction. Annie’s closet of ruffled dresses…Gone. Aaron’s collection of Star Wars action figures…Gone.
I didn’t need to ask how or who. My house hadn’t just burned to the ground. It was swallowed by thick layers of spider webs.
Scalding hatred burned the back of my throat. What a vile son of a bitch, leaving his webby funk on everything he destroyed, on everything I loved.
I stepped through the rubble of charred wood and soot, my boots tangling in nets of silk strings. The dappling shadows beneath the fallen walls no longer smoldered, the embers long gone. I couldn’t sense the dead aura of the Drone or the pulse of aphids. Couldn’t feel the warm hum of Michio’s presence.
