Neither of us said anything for the first ten minutes hustling away from the warehouse, but the unspoken truth blared in my head. This city wasn’t safe for Jeremy anymore. There was no way he could stay here. The sooner he left, the better.

The knowledge filled my chest with a gaping ache. Where did that fact leave me?

When Jeremy must have felt we’d gotten enough distance, he tugged me into an alley between two stores. He tossed aside a piece of tarp to uncover his bags. He must have stashed them here before he’d come to rescue me. He looked at them and then at me. His eyes had darkened.

“I think you should go to the police,” he said. “Call them right now, tell them you were kidnapped, have them come to the warehouse. You can make up a story about how someone saw what was going on and broke you out, then took off. Tell the cops you don’t know why you’re being targeted and you’re afraid it’ll happen again. Once they see what went down in that place, they should give you protection. Maybe even move you to a safe house for a while. But eventually you’d be able to go home.”

The ache in my chest dug deeper. “What about you?”

“I’m leaving the country,” he said. “It’s all I can do at this point. So... this has to be good-bye. If the Alpha Project people see any sign that we’re still in contact, it won’t matter what the police do. They’ll wait for their opening and try to use you against me. I can’t let that happen, Grace. I can’t let them hurt you again. I wish it were different.”

The anguish was plain in his voice. Hearing that depth of emotion made my throat close up. He’d sacrificed so much for me already, taken so many risks. I’d thought I had for him too, but in the end, where were we? With him fleeing the country like he’d meant to all along, only in so much more danger than before. And still, all he could think about was doing whatever he could to make sure I kept the life I’d already been living.

I thought of my house, still filled with ruined furniture. My job at the shelter—what really made me happy there other than the animals? I could find work like that anywhere. Was I still holding on to some distant hope that my mother might have a change of heart after all this time and come back to make a real family with me?

No. Not even a little bit.

I’d thought that kind of security was what I wanted—to build a life for myself here, full of people and warmth, to fill the hole that’d been left when Mom and then my grandmother had gone. To create a place that really felt like a home, certain and safe. Everything in its place.

But none of those things seemed to matter very much now that I was faced with the certainty of losing Jeremy too.

I touched his arm. “Jeremy, I get what you’re trying to do for me. Maybe a week ago, that’s what I’d have wanted too. But now... There’s nothing here I want to hold on to as much as I want to hold on to you. I’d rather be scared and on the run with you than making some kind of a normal life here without you. I want to come with you, wherever you’re going... if you want me there. If you don’t think I’ll drag you down.”

The last words fell from my lips with a hitch of my pulse. What if he didn’t want me there? He might very well think I’d slow him down, trip him up, like I had here—and it might be true. No matter how much he liked me, in the end he had to think about himself first—

“Grace.” Jeremy’s voice was so awed it cut through my frantic thoughts. He tipped his face close to mine, our foreheads nearly touching. “Of course I want you with me. I never even thought— Are you sure? I can’t promise you... anything, really. Other than that I’ll be there with you the whole way. We might have to stay on the move for a while. We might never have anything that looks remotely like a normal life.”

I was already beaming. “I don’t care about a normal life. I had one of those already, and you know what? I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I was really living until I met you.”

He laughed hoarsely and pressed a kiss to my lips. I leaned into him, reveling in the tender heat of his mouth, the gentleness and strength combined in his arms around me. He drew back only an inch to say into the space between us, “Me neither, Grace. Me neither.”

I pulled him back to me again. We clung to each other, lost in the slide of our mouths and the heat of our breaths for a full minute or two before common sense kicked in. I stepped back, still grinning. “I guess we should save that for later.”

“That would probably be smart.” Jeremy hefted his bags. “If we’re going, we’d better go now. Do you need anything from your house?”

I shook my head. “No. There’s nothing there that’s really important anymore.”

He grasped my hand, his fingers twining with mine as he smiled back at me. “Then let’s get out of here, sweetheart. There’s a lot more I’ve got to tell you along the way.”