just that urge to confide in him, though, or even the near-constant urge to touch him. The whole interaction had been strangely charged in a way that went beyond the physical. Every time he looked at her, she swore he was about to open his mouth and tell her something vital. The words never came, but they were there, all the same. Loud enough to echo between them.
She didn’t know him well enough to read him that closely, and that was the most unnerving part of it all.
She pushed open the door and climbed out. Conall and Rafe were already examining the tree trunk, and Gray was busy assembling the saw at the back of their Jeep. That left only Knox standing alone, and Nina found herself both eager and also strangely reluctant to speak to him.
But she had to. “This is the biggest one yet.”
He had his arms crossed, one hand scratching idly at the stubble on his cheek. “Hopefully there won’t be too many more. We should be back on the interstate in another ten miles.”
She watched his fingers as they moved and tried not to think about them stroking over her skin. “Right.”
Knox slanted a look at Maya, who was still seated behind the wheel and glaring balefully at the fallen tree. “If any of your team needs to sit this one out, it’s okay. We’re built for this.”
A fact that was impossible to miss—or ignore. Rafe was already limbing the trunk, his muscles bulging as he tore off branches as big around as Nina’s arm with nothing more than his gloved hands. And Conall, who seemed more at home with tech than physical exertion, had stowed his ever-present tablet to help.
“I noticed,” she told Knox dryly. “But someone has to run the saw while we clear the wood.”
At her signal, Maya and Dani exited the truck. Gray fixed the expandable frame of the saw, with its two articulating lasers, around the tree trunk and locked it in place. He placed it about a third of the way up the portion blocking the road, something Nina noted with approval. If they could buck it into three huge logs, they might be able to roll it aside. Maybe they wouldn’t be there all day, after all.
But Knox didn’t seem pleased. His shoulders were tight, and his narrowed gaze was fixed on some far-off point in the woods.
Nina moved closer, even though the proximity made her skin prickle with something she wished was warning. “What’s wrong?”
He turned to stare back down the road, his lips pressed into a tight frown. “Something’s off.”
She dropped her hand to the comforting weight of the pistol at her hip. She didn’t spend a lot of time this deep in the forest, and she was far more accustomed to the noises of the city—the crashes and bangs of people and machinery, laughter and catcalls and the occasional scream. This was …
Quiet. There were soft sounds here, like birds chirping and the breeze stirring through the trees. But the breeze had died down, and even the birds had fallen silent. Like the entire world had drawn in a deep, bracing breath and was holding it.
Before Nina could say anything, Dani darted across the road, slammed into Maya, and shielded her against the relative safety of the truck. “Incoming!”
Instinctively, Nina looked up. Dull gray grenades the size of her fist sailed through the air only to fall and skitter across the pavement. One by one, they slid to a stop and opened, tiny metal spider legs steadying them as deadly arcs of electricity streamed forth.
Not grenades. Mines.
She was still pulling her pistol when Knox tackled her. By the time they hit the cracked asphalt, they had each squeezed off a shot, impacting the mine closest to them.
It exploded in a shower of smoke and sparks, and Nina pushed up on her elbows, dizzy with adrenaline. “Time to see how good you are, Captain.”
“Take the ones on the left.” Knox rolled to his feet and fired again.
“Your left or my—Oh, fuck it.”
Raiders streamed out of the woods on either side of the road, dressed in faded military fatigues and rough leather. There were dozens of them by the time Nina jumped to her feet. She dispatched three as she spun around, part of her attention focused on surveying the controlled chaos of the fight.
Gray’s rifle was useless at this range. Conall tossed him a large automatic pistol with a huge magazine instead, but he still mainly used