“Enough with the dramatics.” My voice comes out sharper as concern bubbles in my stomach. “What is it?”

  “Your… your hand,” she stutters, still with that damned expression. I hold my hand out in front of me and flex my fingers wide. While I see nothing out of the ordinary, Lillith mimics Taryn’s earlier surprise with a sharp inhale.

  “Would you stop making that noise? What are you even freaking out about?” I demand as I turn my palm to face me. Adrenaline floods my system, the potent surge so strong that I can almost feel the dilation of my pupils.

  A golden glow stares back at me.

  It’s scattered, sprinkling over the pads of my fingertips and swirling along the inside of my thumb. Tiny spots merge with bigger ones, shimmering off my hand like a constellation.

  “What?” I breathe as my heart lodges in my throat. My pulse jumps and knocks as I shake my head and try to make sense of it.

  “Who were you talking to before we left?” Taryn asks, and I shake my head again, recalling my steps.

  “It’s not like there are a whole lot of options.” My voice is borderline hysterical with its high pitch, and the nervous laugh that follows is just as agitated. “Xeni. I talked to Xeni, but I didn’t touch him.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. He was standing several feet away from me. Before that I was…” Realization doesn’t so much as find me as it slams into me with brute force, and it makes me waver. If I were standing, I’m convinced my knees would’ve hit the ground.

  “I was with Nyx,” I whisper as a fresh wave of panic rises in my chest. “But that’s not… it can’t… I’ve touched him before… haven’t I? I had to… there’s no way I haven’t… right?” My frantic eyes swing up to theirs, bouncing between them as I beg someone to answer me. “We spend… we spend all that time together, and I give him gifts and we talk, and I…” My voice creaks to a stop as I recall all the times I’ve been close to Nyx.

  Him accepting the flowers I bring him, always grabbing the stem and never my hand. Spending the harvest working side by side, but pulling the produce from different plants.

  Delivering his snacks and watching him grab a muffin from the basket I carry.

  Sitting on the rocks, with his presence so close I’m drunk off it, but not touching. Never touching.

  Another memory hits me and steals the remaining oxygen from my lungs. Those times when he begs me not to leave and grabs for me. Even now, I can feel my shirt pulling against my torso as he tugs, his fingers wrapped around the fabric and his eyes wide.

  He’s never…

  We’ve never…

  “We have to go back,” I croak, and Taryn and Lillith glance at each other in surprise. “He was already so upset that I was leaving him. Oh, gods, I fucking left him.” My fingers jam into my hair, snagging in a tangle that makes my eyes water. “He’s going to be so fucking confused and scared. I have to go back!” My voice has risen into a shout, and Taryn chews on the inside of her cheek for a moment before she answers in an infuriatingly calm tone.

  “Reyes, we just got here—”

  “I don’t fucking care!” I bellow, and Lillith’s passive demeanor shifts to something predatory in an instant. She’s alert, muscles tense and eyes locked on me. It makes my hackles rise, my instincts alight with the silent threat, but it doesn’t change my mind. “I do not fucking care,” I repeat more calmly, but my entire body quakes with the effort of containing myself.

  “You’ll care if winter hits and we don’t have enough food,” Taryn argues. “I know you, Reyes, and if he’s hungry with nothing to eat, you will blame yourself. It will destroy you.”

  “And this will destroy him! I’ll figure it out,” I snarl through gritted teeth. “Taryn, I can’t leave him there to deal with this… I fucking can’t. If you won’t help me, I’ll go back myself.”

  “Reyes,” she calls, but I slide the van door open so hard it bounces back and knocks me in the arm as I scramble out and jog towards the garage. “Reyes!” she shouts, and thundering footsteps precede Lillith blocking me with her enormous body. Arms crossed and standing at her full height, she stares down at me.

  “Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder,” she warns, and I bare my teeth like a feral thing.

  “What would you do?!” She rears back in surprise at the anger in my tone. My hands fling around me in my helpless panic, needing an outlet for this fury. “If it was Taryn, and you knew she was hurting? If you were responsible?! What would you do to get back to her? What fucking mountains would you move to make sure she was okay?” Her posture droops as she glances over my shoulder to where Taryn cautiously approaches. “What would you have me do?”

  “How about this?” Taryn steps beside me with another of those pitying smiles. “Why don’t you show Lillith where the truck is stored, and she can work on getting it started while you and I carry the greenhouse out here to load.”

  “It could start right away. What if it starts? What if I could go to him?” I argue, but Lillith shakes her head.

  “If it’s been sitting for years like you say it has been, it won’t. It’ll need some coaxing.”

  “But what if it does?!” I shout.

  “If it starts,” she interrupts with that booming voice that echoes through the otherwise silent night, “we’ll plan from there. You aren’t driving off in this state. It’s too dangerous, and we won’t let you do something stupid.” I snarl at her, but she only raises a brow, though her face softens. “We want to get you back to the village as soon as possible, too, Reyes. You know that, right? That we would never do anything to keep you from him?”

  My shoulders fall as the fight drains away. “I… I know that, I do. Shit, I’m sorry,” I mutter. Anger fades into a wave of worry as I stare down at my glowing hand in the darkness. The light flickers and swirls under my skin, and I picture him doing the same. My heart lurches and my stomach is tight, every instinct screaming at me to do whatever it takes to return to him. Steal the van and leave them here, or argue until I convince them to go with me. Hells, it has me half convinced I should start running just to find my way back to him.

  I wonder what he’s doing right now. Wonder if he’s hurting.

  “Come on,” Taryn says as I swallow past the lump in my throat and nod, leading them towards the garage. “It’s going to be a long night, and we’ve got work to do.”

  Reyes

  As soon as the dusty tarp is ripped off the truck, my stomach sinks. Optimism is a fragile, failing thing as I examine the frame, knowing in my heart it won’t start. Rust eats at the wheel well, and spiderwebs thick as gauze bandages spin around the mirrors and handles. The eight-legged creatures skitter away as Taryn’s lantern illuminates their home, and I shiver at the hundreds of spindly legs as they disappear into crevices.

  The lockbox is so dirty it blends into the wall, still full of keys like some sort of memorial. Most of the vehicles that match them are no longer here. Thieves have long known how to hotwire, so the keys weren't needed when they were stolen. I watched so many of them roll through the gates, driven by groups of raiders I couldn’t confront. One evening, as another of them drove away, I tried to protect the rest. I dragged more obstacles to the entrance of the garage, built up boxes and crates to hide the remaining few vehicles, and cloaked them with tarps and bags of junk. It worked, because the three I hid here remain, cobweb-covered though they might be.

  “Come on,” Taryn says as I hand the keys over to Lillith. “Let’s find the greenhouses while she gets to work.”

  “But what if it starts?” I ask again, just as stubbornly as before. My arms cross and my chin juts defiantly, and she sighs but nods as Lillith clears a path and crams herself into the driver’s seat. Every one of my nerves explodes, clinging to that seed of hope inside me that waits to flourish, but the engine doesn’t turn over.

  It doesn’t even click.

  Reality is as jarring as a bucket of cold water, and a heavy breath pushes more oxygen out of my lungs than I can spare. My head spins as static forms in my vision, and my temper explodes.

  “Fuck!” I bellow as my knuckles meet the stack of boxes beside me. One tumbles to the ground and something shatters inside it, but it isn’t enough to satisfy my fury. I snarl as I pull my fist back again, ready to destroy everything here just to get some relief from this anger.

  Powerful fingers wrap around my wrist, and I bare my teeth as I whirl to face Taryn. “That’s enough. Get your temper under control, Reyes.”

  My cheeks heat as I stand there, panting, but eventually my rage is replaced by shame. She spots the shift in my demeanor and releases me, and my back thuds against the wall. I sink to the ground, my hands scrubbing over my face. “I just need to get to him.” The words are muffled against my palms, too embarrassed to meet her eyes.

  Taryn’s presence towers over me, but then she drops to sit beside me and rests a hand on my knee. “Believe it or not, Reyes, I understand what you’re going through right now. When Lillith and I were marked, I was a prisoner, and she was a guard. She tried to do everything right… notified her superior officers and even got permission to release me from my cell for visits. They asked her to keep it quiet, and she did. We followed every single rule before we realized there was a secret playbook running the game.”

  “She’s a good one,” I mutter as my hands fall into my lap, and we both stare at the giant red woman beside the truck. Her brows are pinched thoughtfully as she explores underneath the hood, muttering to herself and tracing something with her finger.

  “The best,” she agrees. “They kept us apart at Ljómur, and it felt like my insides were trying to escape to reach her. There were times I believed I would tear myself into pieces to make it through those bars, consequences be damned. I was willing to break myself apart just to get to her, even if it meant I’d never be whole again.”

  “How would you get to her if you weren’t whole?” I ask, and she squeezes my knee as I realize what she’s done. I heave another sigh as I finally glance up at her piercing green eyes. “That was the point of telling me that, wasn’t it? Some self-actualization bullshit?”

  “It was,” she agrees with a twitch of her lips.

  “Didn’t know you were a prophet,” I mutter as I thunk the back of my head against the wall.

  “Didn’t know you were so easily defeated,” she retorts, but there’s no heat in her tone, and my anger has faded as I scoff. “Now, while she’s working, you and I need to prepare the greenhouse to load. That way, when the truck is ready, you will be, too.” We stand together and dust ourselves off, and I cast one last hopeful glance towards Lillith. She peers over and subtly shakes her head.

  “It’ll run,” she promises with an apologetic smile. “It might just take a few hours.”

  It doesn’t take a few hours.

  It takes fifteen.

  Fifteen fucking hours.

  Fifteen hours of frustration that grows with every passing minute. No sleep and ever-shorter tempers, and snippy retorts that morph into arguments. Despite my earlier calm, my anger has returned, and I feel like I’m going to explode right out of my skin with it.

  Taryn’s sick of my shit, and I’m sick of her reassurances. I’m tired of fucking waiting, and if the keys to the van weren’t tucked securely into Lillith’s pocket, I might’ve already run off with it and left them here to fend for themselves.

  It’s an awful thing to admit, but it’s the truth.

  I am desperate to get to him.

  The greenhouse is disassembled and sitting outside the garage, ready to be loaded, and the van is filled to the brim with every useful item we could find. The remaining dry stores from the camp take up the back and middle rows. Bags of rice, beans, wheat, and flour are packed in as tight as we could get them. Medical kits and towels, blankets and spare clothing fill the gaps, until the doors barely close.

  A maintenance closet in one of the better-hidden rooms held tools and building materials. Most of the stuff is foreign to me, and I’m not even sure what a lot of it does, but it was stored securely, so it’s important.

  The remaining space in the van’s trunk was filled with rolls of wire, gears and mechanical pieces that looked useful, and a few toolboxes. When I showed the room to Lillith, she added a few things to my stack to transport before she loaded her arms with parts and jogged back to the truck.

  And that was hours ago.

  Now there’s nothing left to do but wait, and after a lifetime of waiting, I’m desperate to move. My temper flares hot again, and my jaw tenses, but before I can find something to unleash my anger on, an engine revs to life. Lillith’s whoop can be heard from inside the cab, and she rolls forward through the path we’ve cleared.

  She’s barely parked the truck before I’m grabbing pieces of the greenhouse to put in the bed, and Taryn rushes over to help me. Lillith climbs out, leaving the engine running as we load. “It’ll make it back?” I demand, and she nods.

  “It should. We need to stay together just in case.” Her crimson eyes dart over my agitated frame, pausing for a moment on my marked hand. “Are you okay to drive, Reyes?”

  “Yes,” I snap, but my short fuse doesn’t convince her of anything. “Please,” I add, and her assessment turns into contemplation. “I’ll follow behind you guys, and I swear I’m alert. Not tired at all. But can we please get going?”

  Taryn and Lillith share a glance before Taryn nods. “Yeah, let’s go then.”

  The sun has started its descent, and I know they’re both exhausted. We drove through the night and worked through the day, and now we’re running on two days of no sleep. I might be the only one who’s found rest, and that was only a few hours’ nap in the van during the drive here.

  Sleep is the furthest thing from my mind, though. Adrenaline crashes through my veins, and worry clenches my stomach. I’m wide awake, desperate to return to Nyx. To find him and make sure he’s alright.

  In mere minutes, we’re pulling through the gates that surround this place that used to be my refuge, and instinct cinches my waist and tugs me forward.

  Even without the road, the mark guides me home.

  Reyes

  Torrential rain bursts from the sky a few hours before we arrive home. The weather has added an hour to our drive, and my worry has festered until I’m sick with it. My fingernails are chewed until they bleed, and my hands clench along the steering wheel. Food is wasted on me right now, because nausea has been biting at the back of my throat for hours.

  The dense clouds turn the midmorning dim, and when we pull under the canopy of our familiar forest, the darkness rivals midnight. Taryn navigates through the trees so fucking slowly as the rain comes down in blinding sheets. By the time we make it into the village, the urge to vomit is nearly overwhelming.

  I launch myself from the seat as if I’m on fire. Rain pours down my face and drenches my hair, plastering my clothes to my skin in an instant. A few of the others stand under the cover of their porches, on guard in case of trouble. Ronan and Cameron watch from their house, and my head swivels across the path to where Elas and August are huddled in their door.

  “Where is he?” I shout over the roar of rain as I scan the row of buildings. “Where is Nyx?”

  My eyes find Elas’s just as he exchanges a glance with Ronan, and panic sinks its claws into my chest as I storm over to the Nu’vak. “Where is he?”

  Elas chews on his lip for a moment in a rare sign of nerves. “We haven’t seen him since you left,” he admits.

  “What?! What do you mean you haven’t… You were supposed to be watching out for him! What the fuck do you mean?!” I shove his shoulders, then use the neck of his shirt to yank him forward. In any other situation, it might be funny to watch as he hinges at the waist, allowing me to pull us face to face. “You said you would take care of him! You promised.” My voice cracks, and his face crumples. An apology is written all over his expression, but it’s one I’m not ready to accept.

  “After you guys left, we waited for a while, but when evening hit and he hadn’t come back, we looked for him. All of us scouted the woods, but we didn’t… we couldn’t find him. Boomerang hasn’t returned either.”

  “You couldn’t find him?! You’re supposed to be a tracker,” I snarl as I shove him away.

  “I lost his trail,” he admits with a grimace. “It’s like it just disappeared. His scent, too. I don’t… I don’t know what happened.” An animalistic growl leaves my throat as I push him again, slapping my palms against his unmoving chest. I whirl around and slam into Ronan, who had snuck up behind us.

  “What did you do to Nyx?” Ronan demands. “Why didn’t he come back?” I shove at his arms to knock him out of my way, but he snatches my wrist. His eyes widen as he holds my hand in front of his face, and his mouth parts as he stares at my mark.

  “Move,” I growl as I yank my arm back.

  “Did you hurt him?” Ronan’s voice has turned threateningly low and deadly as he crowds me. “If you did—”

  “I said, move!” I bellow, and before anyone realizes what’s happening, all that bottled-up anger inside me finds a release. My fingers ball into a fist, and my knuckles scream in pain as they find a target in Ronan’s jaw. There’s so much power behind the swing he stumbles backward with a curse.

  Solid black and terrifying, his eyes find mine again, but Cameron grabs his wrist and yanks him back. “Ronan, no. Let him go.” I don’t wait to hear a response or give him a chance to argue.

  I just run.

  My feet slap against the pathway, sending mud and water splashing. I stop at his cottage and bang on the door, yelling his name, but I don’t sense him inside. That tug on my gut pulls me towards the forest and the path we walked.

  To where I left him.

  Rain pours in sheets as I take off again, soaked from head to toe. My socks squish inside my boots as I sprint through the woods, and rogue limbs whip against my arms and face, but they don’t slow me down. Even when I slip on the moss and land hard on my knees, I spring up and keep running.