Page 143 of Scarlet Wars
The room tilted, part exhaustion, part the way he said it. Likehewas the heat I needed to adjust to.
My skin ached for the space his hand hadn’t yet covered.
When I finally lifted my gaze, his eyes were already on me. On my lips.
Then lower.
A beat passed.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t slide his hand lower.
Didn’t drag me in.
But fuck, I wanted him to.
Instead, I took another sip of the tea, trying to ignore the thrum between my legs, the way my nipples tightened beneath the thin lace of my bra with nothing but cold air and his presence to blame.
Then I poured a second cup, carefully, and held it out to him.
“Your turn,” I spouted a lot shakier than I should’ve been.
His fingers brushed mine as he took it.Too much, not enough.
While he drank, I dug through my backpack until my I found the familiar shape of our ticket out of there: the cellphone I’d wrapped in plastic.
When I powered it up, Caden froze mid-sip, eyes widening slightly.
I couldn’t help the smirk that tugged at my mouth. “How’s that paper map of yours, by the way? You know, the one that doesn’t glitch?”
Caden squinted at me over the rim of the cup, silent but impressed.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I chuckled as the screen flickered to life.
“You think that drone’s still scouring the grounds?”
I nodded without looking up. “Pretty sure it is. Probably sweeping every quadrant of this forest as we speak. We need to heat up our clothes somehow without it tracking us and get the fuck out of here.”
The signal bars blinked weakly to life, and I didn’t waste a second to dial the number I’d saved.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Where are ye?” Sean’s voice cracked through the line, tight with worry.
The sound of it made something twist painfully in my chest.
“We barely made the crossing,” I answered with as much neutrality as I could muster. “Caden blew up a US Coast Guardpatrol boat in a moment of pure controlled brilliance. The Canadians opened fire after they saw the blast, because who can blame them. We lost Johnson and Campbell, then had to abandon ship, literally, and swam to shore. We are now hiding in some sort of middle-aged boathouse near the river.” I paused to take a quick breath. “We’re fine, but we need help. There’s a drone tailing us. And by tailing, I mean trying to kill us.”
“Sean,” Caden cut in. “Shoot that drone out of the air. I don’t care how you do it, manipulate a human satellite if you have to. Just bring that godsdamn thingdown.”
“We’re not going to war with the US over a drone.” Rachel’s voice sounded almost annoyed at our suggestion.
“They fuckingshotat us,” Caden snapped. “Go to war over that.”
“Why would the US want you dead?” Rachel countered, her tone cool but threaded with disbelief. “All they have is an arrest warrant for Emma, not a kill order.”
Her words hung there, brittle in the silence that followed.
