“Starting right now,” I murmur with all the intentions of making his jaw drop.
He smiles behind the kiss as he gasses the car to pull ahead of the night vision pros behind us, and I slide over to be straddling him as my hips grind against his. He starts peeling my shorts off, but it’s impossible to do with me in his lap, so I shift over to pull them free just as I smell a gust of uranium.
“Stop!” I scream.
He reacts quickly by slamming on the brakes, violently bringing us to a halt, and slinging my body through the windshield.
The glass shatters and bounces off my body as I twirl through the air, and I get sick when I see the disturbed ground I’m about to land on... full throttle.
Please work for once. Please work.
Using my gift, I veer my path, and I land on the other side of the landmines while sliding through the mud with my undone shorts. I taste the grit in my mouth, and I smell the wet soil tangled in my hair, smeared against my face, and cloaking my body. I wipe away mounds of it as I quickly do my shorts back together.
“Aria!” Jase yells in a panic.
“I’m okay. I’m disgusting, but I’m okay.”
The foul scent of the stagnant puddles that are mingling with the mud are drenching me in a pungent aroma. Jase runs too close, and I squeal while holding up my hands.
“Stop. Don’t move!”
He freezes, as does everyone else running up. I slowly climb up, and I carefully navigate myself through the maze of puffed up spots.
“There are uranium landmines all over the place. They worried we would catch on, and they set a trap,” I murmur while crossing the path without falter.
Jase jerks me to his body the second I’m safely back on the other side.
“Damn it, that was close. How the hell did you know?” A guy murmurs through strained, rattled breaths. “Those would have taken us all out if you hadn’t seen them. Just one of them would have set off a chain reaction.”
I nod, agreeing with the corporal speaking.
“I smelled it. Any time there’s that much uranium in the air, a bomb is close. We need to find a different route and have the experts defuse them when it’s light out here.”
“It’ll be hard as hell to get there in time if we take different route. I can just get rid of them all at once,” Uncle Grayson says.
“Ah crap. We’re going to need to step back,” Aunt Angelica huffs.
Jase and the others start moving their cars, and my aunt steps up behind her husband.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m going to keep the explosion away from everyone, including Grayson. The closer we are to each other, the better control we have. Just stay back.”
I nod before I blur across the long distance, and Jase opens his arms for me to step into.
“I’m covered in mud,” I huff out while refraining from getting him any dirtier than I already have.
“I’m a big fan of mud,” he sweetly remarks while pulling me to his body.
I smile against his chest, and then I turn to watch my aunt and uncle show the world how truly gifted they are as he incinerates the mines, leaving their blasts much more subdued, but one escapes his grasp. My aunt quickly shifts the explosion, and she pins it down to keep him and all of us safe as they work together like the power couple they are.
“That’s pretty amazing,” Jase murmurs against my head as he kisses my muddy hair.
“They are amazing.”
“I meant their connection,” he says softly as he pulls me to him.
“My mom says it’s powerful, but then again, she says the same thing about what she feels for Brazen. I suppose it's just love in general.”
