included him in her declaration, hadn’t she? Ha. He was so fucked and he wasn’t even getting to enjoy it yet.
“Well, uh, I’ll be here. So that’s one less priest for you to worry about,” Kais said, focusing on his oatmeal.
“We could take Az with us,” Deyva said.
“No,” Kais, Zach, and I all said at once.
Deyva’s eyebrows bounced. “Oh, wow. We all really swapped places on that angel, didn’t we?”
“He was trying to kidnap you or something!” I said, trying not to shout.
“Yeah, I mean, I think he feels bad about it now,” Deyva said with a shrug. “And he could be handy.”
“That may be, but it’s way too convenient for his old plan if he goes out that gate with you,” Kais said, shaking his head. “Az can earn our trust, but he hasn’t yet. If he’s here, he can help me protect the town. We know the windmill breaking down again is probably a trap, but we don’t know what the actual plan is. What if they want Stav, Zach, and I to leave you here unguarded?”
Zach’s arm slid around Deyva’s shoulder and he tugged her into his side, tucking his chin over the top of her head. “I’m still not convinced you should leave the gate.”
Deyva’s smile was sweeter than it was smug, but it was a close call as she twined her arms around his waist. “Yeah, well, I’m not sure you should either, but you’re definitely not going out without me, okay?”
“Make it a quick trip,” Kais said to me. “If there’s something wrong that can’t be fixed in under, say, thirty minutes? Just come back and we’ll find a solution here first. And we need to give Deyva a weapon.”
Deyva scoffed and rolled her eyes, her cheek pressed to Zach’s chest. “Oh yeah, cause, like, I nearly broke a nail last time.”
I grinned and waggled my eyebrows at Zach. “What do you say we give her John?”
“Does she have to keep fondling the sword like that?” Will asked, glancing in the rearview mirror to where Deyva was petting the authentic crusader’s sword I’d stolen from the archdiocese.
“Sorry, Will,” Deyva said, looking up from the thin, tapered blade. “It’s just so pretty.”
“Maybe sheath it while we’re in the car,” Zach said in her ear, smiling at her like she’d just finished sucking him off.
I would’ve been a little jealous—Deyva hadn’t even really touched Zach much, and I should’ve been the one getting that dopey look—but she did look really cute and starry-eyed with the ancient blade in her lap. And Zach never failed to express his appreciation for any second we spent together.
She sighed and slid it into the replica sheath, her hand going down to rest against Zach’s on the seat. It wasn’t holding hands, Zach was probably going to need some time before he was comfortable enough to be so open in his affection with either Deyva or I, but I caught their fingers brushing together in a way that made my chest ache.
“Ah, here’s the turn,” Will said, steering the truck onto the utility road that led to the windmill farm we’d been using as one of our main sources of energy in Bethel. “It’s one at the back western end.”
The truck bumped along the dirt road, great monolithic windmills glowing like dark shadows on either side of the vehicle as we passed them.
“Open a window?” Deyva asked me.
Will lowered the window, all four of us grimacing at the sulphuric smell of the air. Will twitched as Deyva leaned to his left, her ear pitched to the window.
“Can you hear anything?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so, and hellions aren’t great with subtlety.”
“Zach, you’ll help Will out on the windmill, and Deyva and I will keep an eye out on our surroundings, good?”
“Good.”
Will pulled up to the concrete base of the windmill, his door facing the control panel at the base. The farm near Bethel was the vertical axis style, lucky for us, which meant as long as there was air-flow, we were gaining a little power from all the mills, regardless of what direction it was coming.
“Is there any chance it’s something in the wiring on the way to town?” I asked.
Will shook his head, pulling an air-filtration mask up to cover his nose and mouth. “If it were, it wouldn’t be just the one mill down. It should be an easy fix, maybe just a patch in the computer. Kit?”