The safe house in the dunes was a different kind of monster. It wasn't a high-tech fortress like the city house; it was a low-slung, weather-beaten shack tucked behind a wall of sand and sea grass. It looked abandoned, which I guess was the whole point.
Inside, it smelled like salt, cedar, and the kind of cold that gets into your bones and stays there. Caden didn't waste any time. He dropped the bags and started doing a sweep of the rooms with a flashlight, his movements quick and jagged. He was on edge, more than I'd ever seen him.
"Maisie, go pick a bed in the back room," I said, trying to keep my voice light. "Pinky needs a nap after all that driving."
Once the door clicked shut behind her, I turned to Caden. He was standing by the window, peeking through the slats of the blinds. The moonlight caught the side of his face, making the scars on his jaw look deeper, more permanent.
"You're shaking," I said, stepping closer.
"It's the wind," he muttered, not looking at me. "The insulation here is trash. I'll get the generator running."
"It's not the wind, Caden. And it's not the insulation. You've been a walking heart attack since we left Seraphina's place. What did she tell you in that back room?"
He finally turned, and the look in his eyes made me want to take a step back. It wasn't the "robot" stare. It was a man who was looking at a cliff he was about to fall off.
"She told me the Silversmiths aren't just looking for a witness anymore," he rasped, his voice sounding like it was being dragged over gravel. "They're looking for me. They know I'm the one who pulled you out. They know I've been building a file on them for years. You're not the target anymore, Amara. I am. Which means being near me is the most dangerous place you could possibly be."
"So what? You're going to give me one of your protocols and tell me to run?" I walked right up to him, stopping when my chest was inches from his tactical vest. "You think I'm just going to take Maisie and disappear while you go on some suicide mission to play hero?"
"It's the only logical move," he said, but his hands were clenching into fists at his sides.
"Logic is a lie you tell yourself so you don't have to feel anything!" I shouted, the words echoing off the thin walls. "I'm not a variable, Caden. And I'm not a project. I'm a woman who has spent her whole life being told she's not enough, and then I meet a man who treats me like I'm the most important thing in his world, even if he's too scared to say it."
I reached up and grabbed the front of his vest, pulling him down toward me. "Look at me, you jerk. Look at me and tell me you don't want us here. Tell me you want me to leave."
He didn't say it. He couldn't. His breath hit my face, hot and uneven. The "Robot" was gone. In his place was a man who looked absolutely wrecked. He looked at my mouth, then back at my eyes, and I saw the moment the last of his walls crumbled into the sand.
He didn't kiss me gently. He grabbed my waist and pulled me against him so hard I lost my breath, his mouth crashing onto mine like a storm hitting the shore. It was messy, it was desperate, and it tasted like salt and three years of loneliness.
His hands were everywhere—in my hair, on my back, gripping me like I was the only thing keeping him from drifting out to sea. I kissed him back just as hard, my fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders, finally breaking through the armor he'd been wearing since the day we met.
He pulled back just an inch, his forehead resting against mine. "This is going to ruin everything," he whispered, his eyes dark and wild.
"Good," I breathed, pulling him back down. "Everything was already a mess. Let's just be human for a minute."
In that dark, cold shack in the dunes, the protocol didn't exist. There were no Silversmiths, no fires, and no rules. There was just the sound of the ocean and the heat of a man who had finally realized that some things are worth the glitch.