Page 155 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

“So we go to Auburn,” Chloe says, and this time her voice doesn’t waver. “We go to Auburn and get my friend.”

Going into a base with no floor plans, no gun, and no research terrifies Chloe, but she has Killian teleport them into a sporting store to quick steal a bag with power bars, pocketknives, and caffeine, then right outside the proximity alarms for any sudden movement.

It’s dusk, and the base is set deep in a grove of trees, all perfectly tall in uniform straight lines. The ground is damp, their footsteps squishing with the deep give of thick moss and loam.

Chloe’s spent a lot of time in Washington at this point, and the ground never sunk so much where she trod, especially in winter.

Killian stands straight, his eyes focused further away than Chloe can see, as they stride through the pristine straight lines of the grove.

They’re sitting ducks. Anyone could look down any of the rows and see them. Any anomaly is obvious.

But Chloe hasn’t spotted any surveillance yet.

After her boot almost gets stuck in a particularly slurpy chunk of mud, Killian offers his arm to her.

“This must be why they set up deep in a water reclamation plant,” he mutters, disgruntled despite his chivalrous motion. “Natural deterrent.”

“Is that what this is?” Chloe asks, before quickly bending and reinforcing the rubber sole of her boots, adding additional waterproofing. The last thing she needs is wet socks while trying to save her friend.

Her friend.

Her pulse thrills, once more, at just how close they are. That before the end of the day, she might be holding the spirit fox. That this walk through white birch and deep mud might end with them being triumphant, with her ensuring the safety of the only reason she survived any of her captivity, with Seanna being safe forever.

They just have to get through the base in front of them.

A base neither of them have seen before. A base with no floor plan. A base with a completely foreign set of traps, of protections, of guards.

Killian gives her a sharp glance, then whatever he sees in her expression softens his face.

“What?” Chloe preempts, as the dusk streaking over them reflects purples and pinks on the white of the birch bark. It’s almost beautiful, it’s almost meaningful, and if they weren’t on this quest and weren’t about to do something incredibly dangerous, it would almost be…romantic.

She wants to do more of that, suddenly. Wants more peaceful walks, wants more moments snatched away with him.

“Your excitement and dread and nerves are practically a knot here,” he murmurs, tapping right beneath his breastbone.

“You can tell that?” Chloe asks, and all the hope inside of her delights in this.

“Apparently,” he says, then pauses and smiles.

It’s different from most of his smiles. Usually, the corners of his lips tilt up, the second face underneath the first more subdued.

This time, she catches a hint of his teeth.

She should feel threatened—he is, after all, technically a predator—but instead the hope just grows more warm, until it’s warmer than the glow of the sunset around them.

The light reflects off his hair, catching in the red of his eyes as he smiles, and even the gray of his shirt seems bright with the lowering sun.

She grins at him right back, a little bit crazy at it, as the lines of the trees begin to narrow, the shadows growing deeper.

And then…

Out of the corner of her eye, Chloe catches some glimmer of movement, something between refracting light and a smudge on her glasses, and she stills.

Without her having to say anything, Killian stops as well, almost midstep.

Again, almost outside of her awareness, there’s something in between the trees, flitting in the growing shadows. Chloe didn’t get to be as good as she is by being unobservant, and…

“Can you see it?” she breathes.

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