Page 51 of Protected

He gestures toward her and then toward him before he makes theStopsign again.

“But Deck?—”

Stop!This time he punctuates the sign with a glare and a shake of his head.

He shapes the fingers of one hand into an O and places them on the back of his head, bringing them down like they’re spanning the length of a long ponytail.

Lilah. He’s saying Lilah. I know it for sure, and Trisha does too.

He places the same hand on his heart in a possessive gesture.

Then points at Trisha and makes the stopping sign again.

Without waiting for a response, he turns back to lean under the hood of the pickup.

Trisha understands perfectly. With a little huff, she flounces off, mumbling something about how he completely misunderstood her intentions.

I stand behind the tree, shaking and hugging myself and fighting the ridiculous urge to giggle and cry at the same time.

We don’t start off until midmorning because the fishing haul is good. We have to clean, debone, and cook up our catch and then eat.

The late breakfast is delicious, and our spirits are good as we load the vehicles and start driving.

Usually I’m in the back of a pickup with Deck, Micah, and Burgundy, but Logan wants me to get proficient in driving an ATV, so I’m doing that today.

It’s okay. It’s not as companionable as being with my friends, but I like feeling active. Like I’m not a useless hanger-on and entirely dependent. And I’m still on a high after witnessing that interaction between Deck and Trisha this morning.

We stop for the midday break later than normal because we got a late start, and it’s already the middle of the afternoon when we spot a small community in the distance. It’s not directly on the back road we’re following, but it’s visible down the slope from our position.

The entire caravan of vehicles halts when the Jeep in the front comes to a stop. Logan and a couple of the others use binoculars to observe, and as soon as it’s clear thecommunity is still populated and defended, Logan waves for us to move on.

An hour later, we come across a bunch of run-down self-storage units and stop again.

The buildings are in rough shape and overgrown with weeds and brambles from the nearby woods, but most of them still have unbroken padlocks on the doors. There could be stuff inside.

Logan decides it’s worth stopping to open all the units and see what’s in there to salvage. It might take a while and it’s already past midafternoon, so we will stay here for the rest of the day and camp in the storage units since they will offer convenient shelter.

I’m excited. With so many individual units, there could be the possibility of privacy tonight.

Maybe Deck and I can actually have sex.

Deck got recruited into the group that’s working on the most damaged units—the ones that require physical strength to unearth their contents—so I’m on my way to join Burgundy to clear the more accessible units when Logan calls me over.

“I’ve got a job for you, Lilah,” he says without preamble. He’s sweating in the afternoon heat, and there’s a smear of dirt down one side of his forehead like he wiped perspiration away with a dirty hand.

I perk up at the unexpected words. “Sure. What is it?”

“Since we’re here for the rest of the day, I want to get a better sense of that community we passed earlier, so take an ATV and drive back out there. Get close enough to see what’s going on there.”

“What’s going on there?” My eyes are wide, and my heartbeat has accelerated.

In excitement, not fear.

Logan has never picked me first for a real task before.

“Yeah. Numbers. What kind of people. How they’re feeding themselves. Defenses. I want to know who is living there and how they’re surviving. And if they’re a possible threat. We were too far away to get a clear view before.”

“Okay. You want me to go on my own?”

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