Confronted by the choice of right or left, he’d been well aware that upon his decision rested her safety.

On so many levels.

He’d been well aware that even if he could construct a suitable shelter for them, something capable of shielding them both from the sunlight all day long, her absence would be noted and questioned when she returned at the following sunset. How she would be able to present answers that would not complicate her life irreparably, he did not know.

He had picked to the right—on the theory that he wanted to do right by her, and therefore, that was the direction he would take.

When they’d found that well-trimmed, well-cared-for little bush … and then a number of its identical siblings, it was clear they were on the trail of the main house. He did not take her all the way. He went far enough to find the first planting bed, and then had released her hand and hissed at her to go—go fast.

He, too, was out of time.

Xcor had watched her hustle forth for only a moment, and then she was lost into the mist, not even the sounds of her footfalls reaching his ears anymore.

It was as if she had disappeared forever.

And as much as a part of him had been tempted to sit and let the sun take him, he had forced himself away, triangling downward until he had tripped over, quite literally, a ploughed drive.

Although he’d only been able to see five feet afore him, the level surface provided him with an opportunity for alacrity unparalleled by the uneven ground. He had run flat-out, gravity in his favor, his only concern that someone would come barreling up the mountain and see him in their headlights.

That had not come to pass. He had made it to the leveling-off part and had eventually broken free of the misted, scrambled landscape.

The sense of dread he’d first experienced upon penetration stuck with him, however. What if Layla hadn’t made it inside in time? What if someone had found her and questioned her? What if …

He had checked his phone to no avail and then been forced to close his eyes, concentrate, and pray that he had enough remaining strength and focus to ghost himself away.

The only thing that had made disappearing possible was that he couldn’t die not knowing what had happened to her.

Taking out his phone once again, he had some errant hope that she had called and he hadn’t heard the ring in his escape down the mountain. Alas … no.

Stalking to the colonial’s front door, the faint glow in the sky made his skin prickle with warning and his eyes water—which ended as he burst into the house.

To a scene of abject debauchery.

The only thing that would have made it more complete would have been the presence of females. As it was, the air was spiced thick with rum and gin, crowded with hearty laughter, heavy with the kind of male aggression that surged after victory.

“You return!” Zypher called out. “He returns!”

The bellowing would have been loud enough to rouse the neighbors, if there had been any. As it was, it filled the house.

“And we have news,” Throe said with satisfaction mildly tinted with drunkenness. “The induction ceremony is at midnight this coming eve. In Ichan’s library hall. We have been invited, of course.”

The temptation to tell them to go in his stead appealed. But he kept his voice quiet. With naught but a nod, he disappeared upstairs.

Fortunately, his soldiers were used to him retreating into his own counsel—and let him go.

As he shut the bedroom door, the noise below was dimmed, not extinguished; however, he was accustomed to tuning out that group of males.

Going over to the bed, which was a mess of sheets and tangled blankets, he sat down, disarmed, and took out his cell. Cradling it in his hands, he stared at the screen.

There was no way to dial her: Whatever phone she’d used had a scrambled account.

Lying back and looking up at the ceiling, he knew an emptiness that was a revelation.

The idea that she could be dead and he didn’t know it hit him so deeply, he felt as if his personality had split in two.

Never to be united again.

Where was he?

As Sola loitered in Assail’s kitchen, fussing over the few things she’d repacked from upstairs, she kept looking over her shoulder, expecting to find him coming around the corner to try to persuade her to stay.

But he’d already done that, hadn’t he.

In the shower.

Man, for once, memories of being with him didn’t get her juiced. They made her want to cry.

“I no understand why we leave so early,” her grandmother announced as she came up from the basement. “It is not even dawn.”

Her grandmother was dressed in the yellow version of her house frock, but she was ready for the trip, her good shoes on, her matching handbag hanging off her wrist from its fake leather strap. Behind her, Assail’s matched set of guards each had a suitcase—and they did not look happy. Although, come on, they hardly had faces built for the jollies.

“It’s a twenty-three-hour drive, vovó. We need to get started.”

“We are no stopping?”

“No.” She couldn’t take the risk with her grandmother in tow. “You can drive in the middle during the day. You love to drive.”

Her grandmother let out a sound that for anybody else would have been an F-bomb. “We should stay here. Is nice here. I like the kitchen.”

It was not the kitchen the woman was fond of. Hell, her grandmother could cook over a Coleman without blinking an eye—and had.

He’s not Catholic, Sola wanted to say. He’s actually an atheist drug dealer. Soon to be wholesaler—

What if she was pregnant? she wondered. Because she hadn’t taken her pill for two days. Wouldn’t that be …

Nucking futs, as they say.

Shaking herself out of la-la land, Sola zipped the rolling suitcase shut and just stood there.

“Well?” her grandmother taunted. “We go? Or no?”

As if she knew exactly what Sola was waiting for.

Or who, as the case was.

Sola didn’t have enough pride left to try to be cool as she looked around again, searching the entry from the dining area, the archway that was used when you came from upstairs or the office, the shallow hall at the head of the basement steps. All empty. And there were no footsteps coming at a dead run, no thumping from overhead as somebody rushed to pull on a shirt and get to the lower level.

Shower time aside, how could he not see her off …

At that moment, her grandmother took a deep breath and the flat yellow gold cross she always wore around her neck caught the overhead light.

“We go,” Sola heard herself say.

With that, she picked up her suitcase and headed for the back door. Outside, a totally lose-it-in-a-crowd Ford was parked close to the house, the rental agreement in the name of Sola’s emergency identity.

The one nobody in Caldwell knew she had. And in the glove box, there was another set of documents and IDs for her grandmother.

Using the remote, she triggered the locks to disengage, and opened the trunk. Assail’s men, meanwhile, were handling her grandmother with kid gloves, helping her down the stairs, carrying her luggage, and her coat, which she had obviously refused to put on in protest.

As they settled the woman into the passenger seat and her suitcase in the back, Sola searched the rear of the house. Just as before, she expected to see him, maybe running through the main room to get to her before she left. Maybe coming up from the basement and shooting through the mudroom to come out. Maybe skidding around the corner from having been upstairs …

At that moment, something strange happened. Every window in the house had a sudden shimmer to it, the glass panes between the sills and the flat plates of the sliding doors showing a subtle twinkle.

What the—