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“I don’t care. She’s under my protection now.”
“You promised her.”
“Actually, I didn’t.” He finishes arranging things in the trunk and then moves to work on the mess that Max left in the backseat. I look over in time to see Emily taking off her hoodie. Max whistles loudly from somewhere at the edge of the clearing.
I make a mad dash. “Hold up, Emily. Don’t move.”
She freezes with her arms above her head along with the hoodie she’s pulling up. Her voice is muffled behind the heavy fabric. “Why?”
Without answering, I grab hold of the tank top that’s attached itself to the hoodie and pull it back down over her body. The compass falls down beneath the shirt, tucked between her breasts. My knuckles brush across the smooth, bare skin of her waist.
“My shirt was stuck to the hoodie, wasn’t it?”
I chuckle. “Yes, but don’t worry.”
“Everyone saw?”
“Nah, I don’t think anyone did.”
“Max whistled.”
“He probably found another knife, or cut off his finger or something else exciting like that,” I joke.
She sighs. I help her pull the hoodie all the way off. Her hair sticks up in varying directions from the static, and I can’t help but grin. Her hair is always a mess.
Dropping Griffin’s hoodie onto the ground at our feet, I tug her hair free of the hair tie and wrap it on my wrist. She looks up at me while I run my fingers through her hair to untangle it.
“Thanks for being my hero this morning. I know I’m a mess today.” She smiles up at me through the curtain of hair that’s fallen over her eyes again.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got you.” After doing the best I can with her hair, I turn her around and pull her hair back and into a loose braid before adding the hair tie. “That should do it. Ready to get going?”
“Almost. Just have to finish adding my weapons first because I won’t have a repeat of this morning.” She hooks the final two knives onto the inside of her boots—I have a feeling that Max upgraded her weapons in the brief span of this morning and gave her back the ones that taken from her—and then walks away. I follow her to the car and can’t help but think I wouldn’t mind being her hero more often.
I lean forward when Griffin slows the car down. “You’ve gotta be kidding.”
“Must’ve happened after we last passed through,” Griffin mumbles. Ahead of us is nothing but broken concrete and rubble from where the overpass collapsed, blocking the way through.
Max pumps a fist into the air, slamming his fist into the roof of the car.
“Hey, don’t destroy the car unless you want to unload everything into another one yourself,” Griffin berates him.
“Guess this means you’re stuck with us, pet.”
“No, I can’t be.” Emily reaches for the door handle, not seeing her compass sliding off her lap and onto the floor at her feet when she shifts. “I’ll walk.”
The locks click and her door won’t budge when she pushes against it. She glares at Griffin, who only glares back. “You’re not going anywhere without us.”
“I will be once we get that insulin and then get back to the city.” She pushes against the door again, trying and failing to break the lock.
“Like hell you are.”
Her head snaps around to face him, shock written all over her face. “You promised.”
“I didn’t promise. I only said it was an idea. An idea that I won’t entertain.”
The color drains from her face. I understand she needs to do some things on her own, but why is she this adamant about leaving us behind? Something isn’t right. I feel like something else might be at play.
Griffin turns the car around and drives back to the last exit we passed. “We’ll take a detour.”
