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balance.
    â€œNo.” He looked a little sad behind his smile and I wondered how much I’d disappointed him.
    â€œThen why—?”
    â€œBecause, Jack.” He shook his head and sighed. “I was going after your weakness.”
    As I stepped across the overgrown lot now, I heard a light second step somewhere behind me. Abruptly, my instincts brought my mind fully back to the present. There was someone else here—right here, right now—and they were setting my senses on edge.
    I casually moved another step forward, behaving exactly as before but now with all my focus on my stalker, whoever it was. I kicked a rock across the landscape and watched it bounce as I rested my shovel on the ground in front of me.
    There … a crunch of dirt, behind me to the left. Then a muffled footstep, two … I waited again, another moment until he was close enough. Now—
    I spun into a crouch and grabbed the two sneakered feet in front of me. I didn’t recognize the vibrant purple laces until I’d already jerked up and toward me.
    Chloe fell hard onto her back, and I had her pinned to the ground before she could react. Her wide gray eyes stared at me in shock as she struggled to catch the breath I’d knocked out of her. A strand of her white-blond hair was stuck to her dark eyelashes and she blinked, trying to make it fall away.
    Reaching up, I hooked one finger under the strand and pulled it to the side. My motion caught her off guard, and she watched me closely as she panted. My heart beat fast in my chest and I quickly moved off her. Chloe was very smart, and she already knew how to get under my skin.
    I wasn’t about to show her that there were probably a few more ways she could do that.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” I kept my voice low and my anger in check, forcing back the guilt I felt when she winced and rubbed the back of her head.
    â€œWhat do you think, genius? I snuck into the back of your van because I can’t get enough of the smell of oil and old upholstery?” She struggled up onto her elbows. “I’m here to help.”
    â€œYou shouldn’t have come.” I hopped to my feet and held out a hand to her, but she glared at it and stood up on her own.
    â€œLet me help.” A weed was tangled up in the hair on the right side of her head. I stared at it, trying to decide whether it was a good idea to touch her again.
    She shifted her weight to one side and rubbed her hands against her jeans to brush the dirt off. Her eyes never left me, and finally she said, “What are you looking at?”
    I grunted under my breath. My hand approached and she froze, eyeing me warily.
    Taking another step closer, I closed my fingers around her shoulder and reached for the weed. Once I’d freed it, I held it in front of her eyes before releasing it to the ground at our feet. “Why?”
    She cleared her throat twice. “W-why what?”
    â€œWhy would you even want to come with me?” The skin of her shoulder had felt hot beneath my fingers. I flexed my hand as I dropped it back to my side.
    She bent forward, flipping her hair upside down and running her fingers through the strands to shake out another weed and some dirt. Then she stood upright and was suddenly very close—too close—but I wasn’t going to be the one to back away.
    She finally answered. “Because I want to make sure you aren’t going to disappear or back out on me, Jack. This is too important to me … to all of us.”
    I sighed. “Do you trust anyone?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhy don’t you go home to your family?” I watched her for any reaction. After monitoring her for those first couple weeks, I’d eased up. I’d figured my options were either to let her go—and, if she betrayed us, not save her life with the new formula—or tie her up and watch her constantly. I didn’t have time to do that, and Parker’s