Chapter 22.2

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He takes a deep breath. I brace for impact.

"Warren's assigned to ARC10."

"Fuck." It slips before I catch it.

"I know you haven't had the greatest relationship with my father—" he states with caution, moving closer to my throne of wheat bits. "And trust me, he's not exactly jubilant about his assignment either. But I figured because we're a family, we can still look out for each other."

His words burst through the little stone wall around my broken heart.

"Yeah, I can keep an eye on him," I say despondently. "But not because he's special. It's because he's going to be on ARC10, and it's my job. We're not family, Dean. We never really were."

Dean's face doesn't falter. He remains quiet, a sign which always means there's a skirmish inside his head.

"If you're not going to spit it out, find me later," I groan, hopping from the sack pile. I lower my eyes and shove my way through the crowd.

"You think we're not family—" he shouts over the noise of the marketplace as he follows a few steps behind. "Or maybe we never were, but that's not how I perceived it. When I needed something, you and Simon were there. Whenever you needed anything, I was by your side. I thought that's what having a family meant, Janika. It wasn't by name or contract or biology but by commitment and lo—" He shuts his mouth abruptly.

I spin to face him as the civs pass us—some staring openly, some too frantic to even realize we're standing in their path. He reaches out, grabs my knuckled hand from my hip, and pulls me farther into our secret place inside the markets.

We squeeze into our spot where Dean presses his body against me in the tight confines of the nook.

A realization strikes hard—it's not any touch I've needed. It's this one. It's all I want.

I lean into it. I push myself forward to match, fusing us together. He opens his mouth as if he's about to continue his tirade in our private corner.

He freezes.

We have no time for hesitation anymore. With my head in his hands and his neck engulfed by my arms, we reconnect lips that were never meant to be broken apart.

He steals the air within my body as we unravel.

These touches, these mouths, these tongues, and these teeth are relaying a critical message for Dean that I read loud and clear. I hope he hears my reply.

"You will always be mine," he whispers into my lips when he pulls away. "And I hope that I'll always be yours."

We gasp for air together as I raise a brow in skepticism. Mine? Yours? I thought we belonged to the URE.

"Family," he clarifies. "You'll always be my family."

I replenish my exhausted lungs to calculate the situation. He must not know. He can't know. He will never know. "I'll watch him. I promise."

I peer around the corner to check for militia proximity. This shadow-meeting could earn us the rod. Especially when there are two in such close proximity.

He rubs his thumb over my cheek as I face him again, and I flash back to the day on the flour-sack hill when I saw her hand entwine with his.

Connie. She must be pregnant. This is why Dean's here, hurling his emotions at me. If this is the only scenario in which I'll be presented with affection, I refuse to take it. I don't want to be the girl that they come to in their spare time.

I grab my stones again and build the wall back where it was before Dean threw himself on it.

"So, she's pregnant?" I retract from his grasp.

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