“The gas station, down by the beach,” Cade said with a note of dawning realization in his tone as Aiden began to make swimming motions.

   “Near the rental place,” I whispered.

   Cade gave him the thumbs up sign. Aiden hesitated for a moment before nodding and slipping into the woods. Molly followed swiftly behind him but Bret remained for a moment before blowing me a kiss and fading away. “Thank God,” I whispered.

   Cade squeezed my shoulder gently and pulled me away from the roadway. I did not miss the questioning look that Jenna shot me. Though it seemed silly to even think about such things now, I knew that she would reveal anything that happened between Cade and I to Bret. Even now, after all of this, she still wanted him. Or maybe it was because all of this, she wanted him even more. We had few loved ones left, it only made sense that we would search out more loved ones to rely and depend on. More people to love and protect us.

   I looked toward Cade. From the outside looking in, someone might say that was what I was doing with him, and what he was doing with me. But as his onyx gaze met mine, I knewbetter. I knew that no matter how badly I didn’t want Bret to be hurt, he would be. There was no way to stop that, because in Cade’s eyes I could see my future, my home.

   It was the strangest, most exciting, confusing, and comforting feeling that I had ever experienced and I never wanted it to end. Cade’s features softened slightly, his eyes gleamed with understanding. A connection sizzled between us, a bond that I felt in every cell of my body. Everything within me screamed for him. His hand seemed to burn into my skin, searing through my flesh as it flooded me with a heat that I had never felt before. A heat that I had never even imagined could exist until that moment, or until Cade.

   “What are we going to do now?” Jenna inquired softly. Though our attention was turned to her, I could still feel the strange connection thrumming between us. I was suddenly certain that it could not be broken, that it never would be. Not even by death. I thought I should be terrified of these emotions; I had never wanted to be this vulnerable and exposed. But I was vulnerable, I wasexposed, and I was at the complete mercy of my feelings for Cade. I had vowed I would never feel this helpless again after my father’s death, but I was.

   And if he didn’t feel the same way about me… But he did. I was illogically certain of that. I slid a sideways glance toward him as he walked beside me. His shoulders were tense, his gaze slid over the woods as he searched everywhere at once. His words from the tree whispered back over me, ‘you will always be the only one that matters.’ They had been true, I knew that instinctively. Knew it with everything that I had, and was, and always would be.

   He had meant those words, because for some strange reason Cade wanted me, and he cared for me far more than I had ever realized. We were bonded by shared experiences and losses and grief, but even more than that Cade saw allof me. Saw everything that I was, and always would be, and he understood it in a way that no one else could. I think he understood me better than I did, and though it was frightening it was also exhilarating and wondrously comforting.

   If something were to happen to him…

   I broke the thought abruptly off. I couldn’t go there; I couldn’t even begin to go there. I could not bring myself to face the fact that I was more than likely going to lose more loved ones before this was over. That it was very likely we would not all survive, that noneof us may survive.

   “Find a good place to lay low for the day, and get some rest. We can’t get to the gas station without running across the highway; we’re better off doing that at night. And we can’t keep going without some rest,” Cade said.

   We slipped further into the woods, moving swiftly through the underbrush. “I’m so happy,” Abby said as she looped her arm back through mine.

   “Me too,” I agreed, though it felt odd to be happy in this horrible situation. People had just died, many other lives had been lost, but we still had Aiden and Bret. We began to climb as the woods started sweeping gently upward. It was full morning now; the day was already beginning to heat up. I just wanted to sit for a little bit, maybe close my eyes. I wanted to get off my damn feet. Recently my main mode of transportation had been my feet, as had many other people’s, but I was not prepared for this much walking, and running. I was pretty sure my blisters were growing blisters.

   Cade stopped as we came across an old rock wall splitting the woods in half. “If we keep going we’re going to come across the paintball course,” I said.

   Cade nodded as he studied the wall, and then the hill. His eyes were narrowed, and then, slowly, his head tilted back. My heart seemed to stop; I stiffened as a blast of terror tore through me. Before I could tilt my head back to see what had caught his attention, he grabbed hold of me and shoved me against the rough bark of a locust tree. My breath was momentarily knocked from me.

   “Stay,” he hissed.

   I was too stunned to move anyway. He had been so fast, so rapid, and I watched in amazement as he used that speed to grab hold of Abby and Jenna. He pulled them back, sheltering them beneath the leafy bowers of a large oak. The three of them flattened against the trunk of the tree as the small ship that had somehow caught Cade’s attention moved swiftly through the sky over a hundred yards away.

   Fear constricted my chest; I glanced back down the hill we had climbed as I began to pray silently. Aiden, Bret, and Molly had been lucky before, I could only hope that luck held out. They were sitting ducks if they didn’t find some sort of shelter. Even if it was just a tree. “Bethany!”

   I turned at Cade’s hissed whisper. He’d stepped from the shadows of the tree; his hand was outstretched to me. My attention was drawn back to the ship as it settled over the area of the bridge; I waited, breathlessly to see what it was going to do. “Bethany we have to go!”

   A door in the bottom of the ship slid open. I froze, my heart hammering, my eyes widening as something dropped out of the ship. It was small, round. At first I had the insane notion that it was a cannonball, but right before it dropped below the tree line, legs unfolded. Another one dropped from the ship as the first one disappeared. They were the size of a grown dog, perhaps a shepard, but it was hard to tell from this distance.

   What were they?

   I gasped, nearly jumping out of my skin as Cade grasped hold of my arm. “We have to go!”

   “What are they?” I breathed. He stared at me for a long moment. Horror circled through me, my toes curled in my shoes. “Those things. But they’re so small.”

   “That means they’re probably faster.”

   “They come in different sizes?” I asked in disbelief.

   “They haven’t fed yet.”

   I was going to vomit, I was going to deny his words, but they were right, hewas right. I knew it the minute he said it, he was telling the truth. They were small because they were not blotted with the blood of people. As they fed, they would get bigger.

   And wemay be all they had to feed on.

   “We have to run Bethany. Now.”

   He didn’t have to tell me twice, his hand slid into mine as he pulled me up the hill. We struggled, slipped, and slid as we frantically climbed upward. I grasped hold of the thin vegetation, pulling myself up with straggling bayberries, ilexes, and seedlings. Cade released my hand to help Abby as she struggled up a steep section. Urgency filled me, my heart lumbered painfully. Though I knew it wasn’t true, I thought I could hear them scurrying through the trees behind us, gaining on us.

   But perhaps I was right.