Page 103 of Wicked Nightmare

She laughed. Actually laughed. "Like a bomb in her head, Cam? Really? I think you're watching too many movies."

I ran a hand through my hair, pacing the small space between the bed and the wall. Two steps one way, two steps back. "Fine. You're right. I'm being paranoid." I said it through my teeth, which probably undermined the concession. "I've just seen someone outside the building for the last few days and it's tripping me out."

Her smirk vanished. Gone. Just like that. "Yeah, and you wanted to get pissed at me for not being honest about something I didn't know about? You didn't tell me we're being stalked? What the actual hell."

"I didn't tell you because I thought it was nothing. But now..."

"Now what? You think they know about Rose?" The color left her face. "Are they coming for us?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, Lakes. But we need to be careful, okay? Both of us."

She held my gaze for a beat, jaw tight, hands still crossed, and I could see her doing the math. Running the scenarios. Weighing how pissed she was at me against how scared she was about what I'd just told her. Lakey was a lot of things, but she was never slow on the uptake.

She nodded once. Turned on her heel and walked back into the main room. Left me standing there in our bedroom, staring at the wall, listening to Rose humming in the kitchen while she cleared the dishes.

Get it together, Axley.

I grabbed the kit from under the bed and headed out.

We decided to let her try on the piece I stole a while ago. The girls followed me out to the abandoned gas station where I was stashing it. The walk over was quiet, Rose between us, Lakey scanning left and I scanning right. Same formation we used when we were out together. Rose didn't know she was being flanked. Didn't need to.

We sat inside the car, and I popped boards open under the dash, gesturing for Rose to come closer.

"Alright, kiddo. Pay attention. This might save your ass one day."

Rose leaned in, her eyes wide. Lakey perched on a nearby bench, swinging her legs like a kid at a carnival, which was very on-brand for someone who'd been teaching hand-to-hand combat twenty minutes ago.

"First thing's first," I said, reaching under the dash. "You gotta expose the ignition wires. Like this."

I yanked, and a tangle of colorful wires spilled out. Rose's brow furrowed.

"Now, the tricky part. You gotta find the right wires to spark. Come on, you figure it out."

Rose reached in, her fingers fumbling with the wires. She tangled herself up almost immediately, pulling the wrong ones, crossing them, getting her thumb stuck in a loop. She looked more like she was trying to knit a sweater than hotwire a car.

"Easy there, butterfingers," I said, guiding her hands. "Red to yellow, then touch the brown. Like this."

The engine sputtered to life and Rose's face lit up like a damn Christmas tree.

"Holy shit!" she yelled. "I did it!"

Lakey's laughter rang out as she rushed over to clap Rose on the back. "Look at you, little Rose. A regular criminal mastermind in the making."

"Good. Again." I made her do it over and over. Kill the engine, reconnect, strip, spark. Kill the engine, reconnect, strip, spark. By the eighth time, her fingers were sure. By the twelfth, she barely had to look. By the fifteenth, she could've done it blindfolded, and I told her so, and the smile she gave me was so big and so genuine that I had to look away and pretend I was checking the rearview.

As we headed back to the apartment, Rose was a different person. She was chattering away, hands flying everywhere as she recounted her triumph over and over, replaying it from different angles.

"Did you see how fast I got it started? I mean, after the whole wire-spaghetti situation."

I ruffled her hair. "Yeah, yeah, don't get cocky, kid. You've still got a lot to learn."

But she'd gotten the hang of it fast. Much faster than I expected. Faster than Lakey had, though I'd never tell Lakes that. A natural. And something about that nagged at me, the same way the car outside nagged at me, the same way the burning in her neck nagged at me. Normal people didn't pick up skills that fast. People who'd been engineered, trained, altered, people who'd had their neural pathways fucked with by a shadowy organization that treated humans like lab rats... those people learned fast.

I added it to the list of shit I was keeping track of that I couldn't do anything about yet.

The sun had dipped below the horizon, and we were in full-on relax mode. I sprawled on the couch, one arm draped over Lakey's shoulders. She was curled against me, running her fingers over my chest and into the stubble growing across my chin, then trailing them downward again. Slow. Deliberate. Her nails scratching lightly through the hair below my navel before dragging back up. I loved the way it felt over my skin, goosebumps rising in the wake of her fingers, my cock already half-hard and thickening every time she dipped lower.

"So, what's next, my little psycho?" I said, my hands tangling in her hair. "Time to raise some hell?"