avoided pothole. Gray had been making good time all day, driving them straight toward the point of no return.
Tonight or tomorrow, he had to make his final check-in, the one where he’d be given the exact GPS coordinates for the exchange. The longer he delayed, the more irritated Luna’s kidnapper would become. If Knox was going to bring the women in and work out a plan that utilized all of their various skills, he had to do it soon.
It had almost seemed possible. For a few seconds after Gray said the words, Knox had thought it might be that easy. Even if Nina hated him for his lies, if he showed her the video of Luna, she’d help. She was good.
But she’d slipped out of his bed without a word and didn’t want to look at him anymore. Maybe she could feel it already—the truth, seething between them. She wasn’t just good. She was too good for him.
“Isn’t Dalton coming up?” Conall asked from behind him. “Can we pull off and see if Eileen’s is open? This implant is fucking me up, and I want some real food.”
Knox glanced at Gray, who nodded his agreement. “We’ve been making good time,” Knox said, reaching for the radio. “I’ll see if the ladies are up for a pit stop.”
Static crackled, and wary nervousness clawed up Knox’s spine as he pressed the button. “Nina?”
After a few endless moments, he got a response. “Dani here. What do you need?”
He had enough self-control not to flinch. Barely. “There’s a town coming up in a few miles. You guys okay stopping for a late lunch?”
Silence, for what seemed like an eternity. Then, “Sure. We’re game if you are. Lead and we’ll follow.”
He waited for a moment, but nothing else was said. The soft static crackle felt damning in a way that chilled him.
Nina had tamed the lion, all right. One good petting, and he was panting for attention, frantic at being shut out, eager to prove himself. Rafe couldn’t have played it better. Knox could see every move in this manipulative game like he was staring at his own seduction outlined as a tactical plan.
And his gut still insisted that Nina wasn’t manipulating him at all.
A listing, rusted road sign warned them that Dalton was the next exit. Knox watched the kudzu-covered trees go by, their eerie shapes menacing in the overcast afternoon gloom. Someone had trimmed the growth back from the sign at the top of the exit—a weathered wooden door lashed to what was left of an old traffic light with DALTON painted in white block letters.
A century ago, tens of thousands of people had called this city home. Dalton had started to die long before the Flares, as its factories shut down and residents fled the contaminated rivers. They’d lived out their own private apocalypse while the world went on merrily around them. The people who’d remained were tough, the kind of tough that didn’t buckle in the face of a mild inconvenience like the end of civilization.
Gray steered the truck down abandoned streets lined with crumbling factories and empty warehouses. Old fast-food restaurants dotted the sides of the road, their signs cracked or shattered, their interiors gutted by scavengers. Knox had rarely seen many people out and about at the edge of town, but even half a mile out from the center of town, the streets remained eerily silent.
He wasn’t the only one to notice. Rafe leaned forward, bracing his arm on Knox’s seat. “Where is everyone?”
“Still hunkered down after the storms?” Gray suggested.
“No,” Conall said. “No, something’s wrong.”
Knox twisted to look at him. “What is it?”
A frustrated noise. Conall squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know. My brain knows. But I don’t know.”
Gray’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Should we circle back and keep moving?”
After another moment, Conall sighed explosively and shook his head. “No. Fuck, maybe I’m just hungry. I don’t know what the fuck I’m feeling. Don’t listen to me.”
Conall might not trust his own instincts right now, but Knox always had. The implant might have short-circuited the connection between Conall’s conscious and subconscious, but his genius brain was still taking in tiny clues and drawing conclusions from them.
Knox faced forward again. “We can get Conall his food, maybe stock up on a few things. But keep your eyes open. If we see trouble, be ready to move.”
The radio crackled again. “Charming place you’ve brought us to, Captain,” Dani drawled. “What gives?”