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Micah actually lied down with me this morning, something he’s not really done before. Once he checked on Jade and Thomas, he came back, threw some kindling on the fire, and cuddled with me, making sure I stayed warm. It’s peaceful lying with him, just being with him, without fucking all the time—especially when we don’t talk. Although I read him the first few chapters of The Great Gatsby, and he informed me it was boring as hell. Like he’s read anything better.

He never sits still long enough to read, and I wonder if the snow is the only reason for it. It’s like our bodies can’t be away from each other, like a magnetic field pulling us together. I feel his need, his attraction, his intensity. The way his lips graze my skin while he sleeps. Or when he traces tiny circles on my shoulder with his finger when he thinks I’m sleeping.

I can’t think of anything better than having him next to me. I want to press my lips to his and make love to him. My insides freeze at the memory of his last words during intimacy, and I stop myself.

I watch him now, broody and quiet, as Jade, Micah, and I huddle around our fire, and he guts a fish. There’s a thick, heavy tension among us, like mist over a stream. I swallow a lump in my throat, wishing he would give me something, anything, to let me know he cares beyond his need to keep me alive. Jade came to sit with us earlier, the heavy bags shimmer under her eyes and she’s not spoken a word. Micah left us for a bit to fish, and we warmed our hands on the fire. An hour later, he actually came back with one, which only makes me more attracted to him, if that’s even possible. Micah can truly do anything.

My threat to leave him was only yesterday, and I truly don’t know what I will do. It’s like my heart is split in two, and I can’t be with either of them fully. But I can’t bring myself to leave Micah, not yet… I’m not sure ever, even if we are not right for each other. Maison needs to come to us, I’ve decided, and I’m determined to make it happen. They need each other more than they need me, although I’ll give them each a piece of me if they need it, too. I know in my gut this isn’t over. I was about to stick a spear in Nigel’s throat, and Ezra’s threat to Naomi was real. Maison doesn’t know the real danger he’s in by being with them.

All three of us jump up, heart rates spiked and alert, when a loud moan echoes from Thomas’s shelter. Micah throws the fish and launches himself through the thick snow across the meadow while Jade rises to follow.

“Let him go,” I tell her. “He’s the one who needs to deal with this.” To explain to his best friend why he cut off his hand.

The scream that comes out of him next will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.

“My hand!” he cries. “You cut off my fucking hand!”

Jade falls into me, crying and shaking. I can’t imagine waking up realizing you have a limb missing. What that would feel like….

“This is a good thing,” I tell her. “Thomas is awake. It means he’s healing, Jade.”

She wipes her tear-stained eyes and stares out into the forest. “Thomas is alive because of Micah,” she says after a few minutes. “I can’t believe what you both did for him. I never did properly thank you for it, either.”

I bite my lip and dart my eyes to where Micah disappeared, looking at his deep footsteps across the glistening field. “It was all Micah,” I whisper. I can’t take any credit—my eyes were closed the whole time.

“He really is something special, London. Hopefully, you can sort out whatever is happening between you.”

I guess the tension between us is quite obvious.

My head whips as a shadow flashes in the nearby trees. My body is tight and alert, and I jump to my feet. “Did you see that?”

Jade pauses and looks around, narrowing her eyes. “I don’t see anything…”

My heart pulses. I know I saw something move. I press my finger to my lips, gesturing Jade to be quiet.

We are not alone.

“Micah! Micah! Someone’s here,” I whisper-yell in his direction as panic takes over my body. I’m at my limit, but we won’t let them take anything from us without a fight.

Micah emerges from the shelter and narrows his eyes, his body tight and ready to pounce, just as two people appear from the tree line.

James and Nathan.

I grab my spear and Micah’s bone weapon, and hand it to Jade. “Get this to him, now,” I whisper. “Then go hide in Thomas’s shelter.” She runs through the snow, tossing Micah his weapon, which he slices right out of the air. I walk slowly and meet Micah in the middle of the meadow, and we face them together. I trust James, but Nathan and Ollie betrayed Micah, so I understand his lack of trust, even though they helped me escape Nigel.

“I don’t want to hurt any of you,” Micah yells as the two of them stand ghostly still about twenty feet away, “but if you take one step closer, I guarantee, I will make each of you bleed.” He takes one step in front of me, subtly shielding me.

They both freeze and look at one another. James steps carefully toward us, his hands up. “We’re not here to fight, Micah.”

Micah nudges me. “Go with Jade and make sure no one gets in that shelter.”

He hasn’t yet hidden the first aid kit, I realize—a mistake I can tell he’s regretting. I pause for a moment before walking toward where Thomas is fighting for his life, keeping my eyes fixed on Micah.

“Then what the fuck are you here for?” Micah yells.

“We just came to talk.” James steps forward, facing someone who once saved his life, now looking at him like an enemy.

“Why should we believe you?” I yell at James, who darts his pleading eyes to me.