Paired Objective: Matched Desire, Book 2
behind him, face grim.
    “Oh no. No way,” Abby said. “Put me down right now.”
    “It’s safer up here.” His tone brooked no argument.
    “In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a spaceship nearby,” Abby retorted, jouncing against his shoulder as he mounted the steps. “Most likely it’s full of aliens.”
    “In this case, aliens pose less of a challenge than the fucking idiots running amok down there.”
    He was probably right on that count. The oilcan fires illuminated multiple forms, most clustering around the makeshift ring. The ugly mood had been broken, but what had replaced it was an incoherent lack of structure. A few people joined them on the wall, uncertainly wielding weapons. A large subset had fled entirely.
    That left a good twenty or thirty people to hash out who they wanted their next leader to be, with both Uther and Snake Eyes off the list—and aliens on their literal doorstep.
    Human hubris. Abby had seen enough of it.
    I just want to get back to Grammie. She wanted to scream it into the night. Instead, she took a deep breath and counted the stairs Russ was climbing.
    Russ set her down when they reached the top, his eyes burning with what looked like eagerness to fight. And probably, she reflected, fury at Uther’s attempt on his life.
    Now that she was done panicking, Abby tried to mentally piece together what had happened. The first gunshot had gone over their heads. It had probably been meant for either Cam or Russ.
    Or her…
    She shoved that thought out of her head. The three of them had hit the ground so fast there’d been scant time for Uther to pull the trigger again. So the second shot might have been from Snake Eyes and the third from someone else. Katya, maybe. She’d seen the blonde lurking nearby.
    The fourth shot…well, who the hell knew at this point? People were dead. Thinking about it was making her dizzy.
    Standing atop the crudely built concrete wall didn’t help the dizziness much. At least the builders had included a metal rail along the top and the walkway was wide enough that she didn’t feel as if she’d tip off the edge if she dared to move. Still, this particular wall seemed like more of a deterrent to occasional roving aliens than a place designed to actively defend against attacking Barks.
    Russ scanned the horizon while Cam kept watch in the opposite direction, guarding his back. Abby peered into the night with a kind of sick fascination. There was a spaceship less than a mile away—a fairly big one, too, likely capable of carrying quite a few aliens.
    Alien technology was a relatively unexplored topic. There were no journalists on TV endlessly speculating, no published interviews with acclaimed scientists, and Internet access was all but impossible to get these days. A combination of alien attack and friendly fire had knocked out most of the major satellites. The world had gone from information-overload to the Dark Ages in a matter of days.
    “Into the sentry tower. Let’s go.” Cam took her elbow, still searching the darkness with quick, side-to-side movements of his head. The way his pupils were dilated, Abby supposed there was truth to what they said about Twins being able to see in the dark. Well, that was a relief—she’d get some warning before aliens showed up.
    She followed him with one hand trailing along the metal railing, although she sensed he was more than capable of catching her should she slip. Were this not a life-threatening situation, she might have been tempted to stumble and let him sweep her into his arms. It was too bad she couldn’t have an hour on her own to digest what had happened between them earlier.
    Not that she regretted it at all. Damn, that had been hot.
    Abby followed the Twins up a short flight of steps into the watchtower. As its occupant came toward them, Russ shoved her behind him, but the guard showed no signs of aggression.
    “Twins, are you?” he babbled. “Oh, thank God. Thank God. You saw the spaceship,

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