Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 60921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
I can feel my headache forming already.
“It’s fine.” I drop the bags by the couch. “You take the bed. I’ll take the couch.”
“We don’t even know what the bed looks like yet,” she argues. “What if it’s lumpy and murdery and the couch is amazing?”
“Beds are designed for sleeping. Couches are designed for regret naps.”
She snorts. “Fine. Let’s go inspect the sleeping situation.”
I should say no.
I should unpack and make sure this place is secure.
Instead, I follow her down the short hall, every sense strung tight.
There’s one door on the right—tiny bathroom with a shower stall, sink, and toilet. Straight ahead is the bedroom.
Lark pushes the door open with a dramatic flourish. “Ta-da.”
The bed is a queen. Clean sheets. One blanket. Two pillows. Nothing fancy, but it looks… soft. Comfortable.
Too comfortable.
There’s a small dresser, a lamp on the nightstand, and blackout curtains over the window. No TV. No clock. No electronics. Just four walls and a mattress big enough for two adults to lie very far apart.
Or not.
Lark turns around slowly, eyes sparkling. “Well, well, well.”
“Don’t,” I warn.
“One bed,” she coos. “Tragic.”
“You’re taking it.”
Her brows lift. “Is that a command?”
“Yes.”
She bites the inside of her cheek, like she’s holding back a smile. “You gonna pin me down and make me obey, Knight?”
My brain shorts out for a second.
I picture it—the weight of her, the feel of her wrists under my hands, the way she’d arch and—
Nope.
Abort.
“I’m not touching you,” I say, voice too tight. “You’re Gage’s little sister.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh my God, we’re really still doing this?”
“Yes.”
“You know I’m an adult, right? Twenty-four. Tax-paying. Credit scored. Highly capable.”
“Doesn’t change who you are.”
“Then who am I?” she presses, stepping closer.
Too close.
I can see every detail—freckles across her nose, the smudge of eyeliner at the corner of her eye, the faint bruise at her wrist from the guard she clocked with the bat. She’s flushed from the drive, from adrenaline, from the fact that we’re hiding from an entire slice of the criminal underworld.
Her energy buzzes.
Mine… buzzes right back.
“You’re trouble,” I say.
She smiles slow. “Yeah. And?”
“And I’m not adding ‘slept with best friend’s sister while on the run from bounty hunters’ to my list of sins.”
“Yet.”
“Ever,” I snap.
Her grin widens. “You keep saying ‘I’m not touching you’ like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
I am.
Desperately.
I blow out a breath and step back. “Get settled. I’m going to check the perimeter.”
“Translation,” she says. “You’re going outside to growl at trees.”
“Stay inside,” I tell her. “Lock the door behind me. Don’t open it unless it’s my voice and I say the code word.”
“Code word?”
I think for a second. “Bat.”
She cracks up. “You’re obsessed with my bat.”
“It’s a hazard.”
“It’s a lifestyle.”
I cut myself off before I say something worse and head back down the hall.
Outside, the air is colder. The sky’s bruised-purple, stars just starting to emerge.
I circle the cabin, scanning the tree line, the dirt drive, the ground for any tire tracks that aren’t ours. Nothing. No second set of footprints. No lens glint from the dark.
Maddox was telling the truth. This place is off the grid. On a map, it barely exists.
Good.
We need somewhere quiet.
We need somewhere boring.
We need somewhere no one knows our names.
The problem is, I’m locked in that “somewhere” with the one person on earth who makes me forget how to breathe properly.
I finish the perimeter and head back to the front door. Lark lets me in and I lock the door behind me.
Lark heads to the kitchen, barefoot, and rummages through the cabinets.
She’s taken off her jacket. Her tank top is black, thin, and clinging to places my brain should not be cataloging.
“Good news,” she says. “We won’t starve. Bad news? Cole buys like a divorced prepper. We’ve got canned beans, canned soup, canned chili, and—wait for it—canned bread. Who cans bread?”
“Maddox’s security specialists.”
“Yeah, now it makes sense.”
She pops open a pack of instant ramen like she’s discovered gold. “We feast.”
I move past her to the counter, putting a little more distance between us than is strictly necessary. “We keep lights low after dark. No loud music, no visible activity from outside. We don’t know how many people saw that bounty posting, so we assume worst-case scenario.”
“Which is…?”
“They’re already looking.”
She’s quiet for a beat.
When I glance over, her expression has shifted. Not scared. But… serious. Softer around the edges. “Hey,” I say, testing the waters, “you good?”
She exhales. “Define good.”
“Lark.”
She fiddles with the ramen packet edge. “I mean… I’m great, obviously. On the run with my favorite morally flexible nerd, hiding in a murder cabin, hunted by faceless criminals who want to kill us or sell us to the highest bidder. It’s like my Pinterest board came to life.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
Her flippancy is a shield.
I recognize it because I live behind one too.
I turn fully toward her. “Are you scared?”