Page 22 of Uncontrolled

“You’ve got to quit closing me out,” he says. “I’m trying here. I’m really trying, but you just keep… I mean, I don’t even know if you…”

My chin quivers, the exhaustion fighting the anxiety, and he falls quiet. My thoughts won’t stop spinning. Talia and the hunters and all the things I need to do and the responsibilities I’ve dropped and all the ways I’ve let everyone down or will let everyone down. If I could just get a few hours of silence in my brain, I could settle on what to do first. Construct a plan. Talia wants nothing more than for me to take the load off her and Christopher’s standing here offering to help me bear it.

“That hunter followed me,” he insists. “If he’s after me, if he wants to talk to me, why not let me see what he wants?”

Shaking my head, I start us walking again.

We make it almost a block before he grabs my wrist and yanks me to face him. I’m expecting him to launch into a pretty speech and a stronger offer to save the day. Instead, his rough grip holds me firm. “Why are you—” he starts, but I don’t let him finish.

“You’re not helping with this. You don’t get to be involved. That’s how you get hurt.”

His gaze snaps to mine. “I get hurt when you leave me on the sidelines. I get hurt watching you suffer. I get hurt when you don’t trust me to—” He cuts off abruptly and then sucks a dramatic lungful of air, letting it out slow. “Listen, I get it. You think you’re a death sentence for me. I’m doing my best to let you work through that. You’ve gotta understand, Allie, anything your life throws at me is less dangerous than a night at that damn Boxcar Camp.” His voice drops to a hush. “Or a night at my dad’s place.”

The admission is enough to silence me. I’ve seen his scars. Over the past two weeks, I’ve learned not to grab him unexpectedly by the shoulder. We don’t talk about the why.

He leans in enough that his lips touch mine. It’s not a kiss. Instead, I see it for what it is—an attempt to prepare me for whatever he’s about to say. “Stop acting like you’re a grenade,” he whispers.

The anger I’m desperately clinging to fizzles. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

His mouth meets mine and I open to him on instinct. As he deepens our kiss, his tongue finds mine, darts forward in a tease I echo. The strangling ivy of tension from the last few hours tears loose at his touch and suddenly I can breathe again. When he finally breaks from me, his thumbs hook through the loops of my shorts.

“Grenade,” I remind him.

“Once you decide to yank that pin, you lob yourself straight into danger, no plan, no exit strategy,” he says. “If that initial explosion doesn’t take out your enemies, you’re screwed.”

Even with the gentle touches to dampen the blow, or perhaps because of them, vulnerability trickles through me and I stiffen. He should not know me this well. “It doesn’t matter if I die.”

“Don’t ever say that,” he growls. His nose nudges my jaw and I tilt until he nips the side of my neck. “Ever.”

My fingers claw him closer, in his hair, at his ribs, desperate. “I’ll resurrect,” I argue into his skin. He groans in response. “No?”

As I extract myself from the tangle we’ve become, I don’t trust the satisfaction in his chocolate eyes.

“You resurrect. To what? Another Jamison?” he asks.

Without Christopher’s intervention, my existence as I know it would have ended at that cabin.

“I could infiltrate their group,” he says. “Give you and Talia actual names to go off instead of out-of-focus pictures.”

He has a valid point. The thought’s there before I can stop it.

“I can do this,” he says. His voice fills with certainty. “Give me a chance.”

I force my mouth into a sneer. “What happens when they figure out what you’re up to? Or have a suspicious inkling and panic?” I challenge, hoping he’ll see the stupidity in his idea. Despite the heat, I shudder. “What if Jamison pissed them off and they’re after revenge? You don’t know what you’d be walking into!”

When he doesn’t respond, I double down. “What if I forbid you from doing this?” I ask, part of me terrified of the answer. “If I make you promise me you won’t get involved?”

His eyes catch mine. “What if I’m not asking permission?”

Fresh rage ignites inside me. I wait for a beat, praying the spark will die. Instead, my chest heats. “So you’re giving me an ultimatum then? I give my blessing or what?”

We’re going to argue. He’s going to push this and I’m going to resist and I think of all the other times we’ve fought, each a moment he watched me react to threats on a hair trigger, where a mistake could have cost me my life. Could have cost me his.

Shit, I think. I am a grenade.

What if he can get close to the hunters?

If he’s in danger, it’s not worth the risk, I argue.

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