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Banks nods. “And how do you feel now?” He takes my wrists and checks my pulse.

“My head is a little sore, but it’s not spinning anymore.”

He checks my throat and eyes and asks me a few more questions, and when he sits back, he reaches into his bag.

“Drink this,” he says, handing me a bottle, the color screaming bad decision.

“What is it?”

“Something that will help your body process whatever he gave you faster and help settle your lungs. Warning, it tastes unpleasant.”

“How unpleasant?” I ask, screwing up my nose.

“Very.”

I open the drink, but make the mistake of smelling it first. The best way to handle something that tastes like shit is to down it in one go. But holy fuck, Banks is not wrong—it is foul. I press my lips together and breathe through my nose, waiting for the nausea to pass.

“Rest and drink lots of water. If your vision blurs again, or your hands go numb, tell someone straight away,” Banks orders.

“That’s it?” I ask.

“That’s it. You’re not concussed, your pupils are even, and your heart rate is fine. You were lucky, or he was incompetent.”

By he, I know he means my ex. “Aaron is not incompetent.”

“Then you were lucky,” Banks says again and stands. “I have a new formulation of my recovery balm that will help with your bruising.”

“Banks!” Ares snaps.

Banks laughs. “Worth a shot. Just rest up.”

Ares walks him out, and when he comes back, he scoops me up in his arms, even though I protest. He takes me up to his room and into his bathroom, where he undresses me while the shower warms. He doesn’t ask to join me; he simply does, helping me wash off the dirt.

Once I’m satisfied that I’m clean, he helps me into one of his shirts and tucks me into his bed.

“Please tell me when they find him,” I mumble sleepily.

Ares nods and presses a kiss to my temple. “You’ll be the first to know.”

My eyes fall closed, and Ares wraps his arms around me while I drift off to sleep.

Chapter Three

Clay

By the time we get to the cornfield, it’s obvious Vero was here. Stalks are cut and thrown everywhere, loose corn is scattered across a new improvised path, and some stalks are bent at weird angles. We follow the trail until we get to the middle where Cave’s post stands, but there is nothing there.

No Cave.

No Vero.

And no sign of where either of them went.

Brawley turns around in a full circle. “Vero was here,” he says, as if I can’t see the mass destruction behind us.

I crouch down and examine the blood in the dirt. I really hope Vero hasn’t done something stupid—like killed Cave.

“Clay, I don’t like this. Cave is never not here.”