His face broke into a heartbreakingly sweet smile that heated my blood quicker than the little fire in front of me, quicker than all of his crooked grins and promises to keep me safe. Was this lust or love? How did one know the difference?
As the feeling strengthened, I decided it had to be lust, because how could I love him after such a short period of time? Yes, we’d lived intensely, but did intensity speed up feelings?
As though my thoughts were scrolling across my forehead, his smile vanished in increments and then completely. He jerked up to his feet, kicked sand over the fire, then extended his hand, and just like the dozens of times he’d offered it to me since we’d arrived in the Scourge, I took it.
As we walked to our newest nest, I ran my thumb over every crease and callous, the shape and feel of his palm as familiar to me now as my own. Once inside the round cavern, he lifted my knuckles to his mouth and kissed them chastely.
“I’ll take first watch. You sleep.” He let go, grabbed a few pelts from the pile, shook them out, then layered them over the sand, adding a rolled one at the top of the makeshift bed.
My nerves jangled as though I’d drunk an entire gallon of coffee. “I don’t think I can. Why don’t you sleep, and I take first watch?”
He grabbed his machete and dropped a kiss on the tip of my nose. “I’m used to night watches; you’re not.”
“But—”
“No, buts. Rest.”
“Remo . . .”
He backed out of the cave, and then his footfalls whispered across the sand. Sighing, I laid out on my furred pallet and stared at the pinpricks of white light, which through my lashes almost resembled the lustriums that lit up the night sky in Neverra.
Even though they weren’t stars, I wished on them.
I wished Josh had told someone about our gajoï and then I wished Kingston would choke on his apple and be gone forever.
37
The Tremor
“Amara, get up!”
I grumbled, attempting to twist away from the hands shaking me.
They shook harder. “Amara! Someone just arrived. You have to get up.”
My lids flipped open, and I found that no one was even holding me. Remo stood at the entrance of my stone chamber, eyes gleaming wildly.
Another hard tremor dynamited the ground.
Great Gejaiwe, someone was here? Was it to get us out? I vaulted to my feet, adrenaline hemorrhaging through me. I lunged toward Remo, then past him. We took off running down the center aisle just as Kiera and Quinn emerged bleary-eyed, spears in hand.
Soon, they were running alongside us. And then Cruz was there, kicking up sand next to Remo. The only one missing was Kingston. He was probably hiding, sensing the death bells tolling for him, because if we were on our way home, he’d be judged and executed, this time by my father.
When we burst through the tree line, thick smoke clogged the sky and shards of metal and glass already littered the sand. A groan rose from beneath a curved sheet of metal. I ran toward it and heaved it up.
My grip faltered, and the piece of metal, which had shielded the new arrival, flipped over and seesawed at my bare feet. Shock spooled in my chest, and a gasp filled my mouth. I dropped to my knees, my hands scrabbling over the prostrate body.
“Giya? Giya!” A thin cut along her cheekbone wept blood. “Giya?” My voice rattled with shock.
Her lashes fluttered, and then her beautiful, gray eyes alighted on me, and her trembling lips parted around my name. She rose onto her forearms, and then she was sitting, and we were hugging. And although I should’ve been horrified by what it meant that she was here, I was too damn happy that she’d come.
I smoothed out her long brown hair, the locks so crusted with salt and tangled they almost resembled Kiera’s dreads.
“Great Gejaiwe, Amara, I thought I’d never find you.” Her torso hardened suddenly, and she pushed me away. “Wait. Am I dead? Is that why—”
I smiled, a wobbly smile so full of emotion my body shook even though the world around us had finally stilled. “You’re not dead. I promise.” I combed back a lock of hair that stuck to her weeping cut. “This is the final cell. It’s why the train exploded.”
Shock rippled over her drawn face. Even though she had never been pale a day in her life, her skin