CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The desert night is a shroud, and I’m threading through it like a needle, pulled by a string of yearning. Jake’s scent lingers in the air—musky pine and wild sage—but there’s something else mingling with it, something I can’t quite place. My heart hammers against my rib cage, each beat an echo in the silence.
I’ve been tracking him for miles, or at least who I thought was him. The moon is a thin crescent, barely lighting up the sand beneath my feet, but there’s enough glow for me to see the figure ahead. Tall, broad-shouldered; it has to be Jake.
"Jake?" My whisper cuts through the stillness, hopeful, tentative.
But he doesn't turn, doesn't even falter in his steps. I quicken my pace, my boots silent on the soft earth. Finally, as we reach a massive rock jutting out l
