Maybe even better than I understand Rachel.

She leads me to the edge of a little clearing, the towering oaks of the Wasteland circling us like silent sentries. Twigs crunch softly beneath our boots. A handful of sparrows scold us vigorously as we stop beneath their tree.

I’m still arguing my point.

“You calculate the angle between yourself and your target, factor in wind speed and direction, account for the prey’s instinctual flight, and—”

She steps behind me and slides her hands over my hips to position my body, her fingers pressing against me with tiny pricks of heat.

“And what?” she asks as she reaches around my back to pull my arms into position.

I swallow against the sudden dryness in my throat and try not to dwell on the fact that her chest—her entire body—is leaning against me.

“Logan?” The wind lifts a long strand of her fiery red hair and slides it against my face. “You were giving me your list of Things That Must Be Taken into Account Before One Dares to Shoot an Arrow. What’s next?”

“I don’t—” I clear my throat. “I don’t remember.”

“Oh, really?” Her voice is low. “Maybe you wanted to warn me to always multiply the force of the arrow with the probability that the prey will jerk to the left?”

“That doesn’t . . .”

She hooks her fingers around my hand and together we nock the arrow, one vane pointed away from the bow. Her skin is smooth against mine, and I try hard not to imagine anything more than her hands.

“That doesn’t what?” she asks, her voice nothing but a whisper against my ear.

“That doesn’t make sense. You can’t multiply force with . . . whatever it was you said.”

“With a probability?” Her body is molded to mine, our hands are inseparable, and my heart feels like a hammer pounding against my chest.

“I—yes. That. Exactly.”

We stand in silence for several excruciating minutes, waiting for more prey to appear. The scolding birds subside into cheerful chirping. The leafy canopy above us rustles like paper made of silk. She leans against me, and I force myself to review the proper method for creating a battery just to give my mind something other than Rachel to think about.

Assemble copper coins, silver coins, and paper discs cut to coin size.

Heat radiates from her body onto mine.

Stack them up—copper, paper, silver—eight times. Secure with copper wire.

I want to take her into my arms until both of us forget why we’re even here.

Dip the stack in salt water.

She shifts her weight, and I close my eyes.

Connect the wire to the terminals, copper on one end, silver on the other.

“There.” She breathes the word against my neck, and my eyes fly open. We turn six degrees to the right and see another rabbit hopping slowly along the edge of the clearing. Our fingers relax away from the wire, and the arrow streaks across the space to bury its tip into the rabbit’s side.

“Got it,” she says, and her lips brush the side of my neck.

All thoughts of assembling batteries fly out of my head.

I spin away from the rabbit, toss the bow onto the ground, and pull Rachel against me before she can open her mouth to tell me she was right—for once, poetry was the answer instead of math.

Kissing Rachel is like discovering a new element—one that turns my blood into lava and sends sparks shooting straight through every logical thought still lingering in my head. Forget math and poetry. Especially poetry. This is much more fun.

Her hands dig into my shoulders, anchoring me to her. Her lips are softer than her hands, but she kisses me like she’s trying to win an argument.

I decide to let her.

She clings to me, and my knees are suddenly unsteady. I push her against the closest tree so that I don’t do something supremely stupid like pull her down to the forest floor.

Not that there’s anyone in the Wasteland with us to see what we’re doing. For the first time in three weeks, we’re absolutely alone, and I don’t plan to waste the opportunity.

I lift my mouth from hers long enough to say, “You were right.” My voice sounds like I’ve just run the length of Lower Market at a hard sprint.

“I know,” she says, and the smug little smile at the corner of her mouth makes me want to do things I shouldn’t do, even though I know the probability of being interrupted is so insignificant, it defies mathematical calculation.

She lifts her lips toward me, and I kiss her like I never want to come up for air. A strange hum fills my head.

This is what I want. Just Rachel and the wide-open space of the Wasteland. Nobody asking my opinion. Questioning my decisions. Looking at me like somehow a nineteen-year-old boy can save them from their worst fears.

This is what I want, but it isn’t the life I’ve been given. It isn’t the path my choices—and the choices of others—have put me on, and until I see it through, until the one hundred fifty-seven survivors in my care are safe and the Commander has paid for his crimes with his life, I can’t turn back.

I can, however, wish with everything in me that things were different.

The rough bark behind Rachel scrapes against my knuckles as I fist my hands in the back of her cloak and tell myself I can’t do more than kiss her. Not now. Not here. Not while the ruins of our lives are a mere seventy yards away.

Not when she still screams herself hoarse every night in her sleep and refuses to discuss it with me when she wakes.