On the other hand, was that just her own wants talking? She wanted to be with Daniel. Was her mind coming up with proofs for that necessity? Was her logic flawed – twisting to accommodate her personal wishes? How could she be sure? When she’d told him before that it wasn’t a good idea to have her liability close beside her while she went on the attack, she knew that was sound logic. Of course, if they got to him while she was far away, that distance wouldn’t remove the hold they’d have on her.

She sighed. How could she see clearly? Her emotions had tangled this whole situation into a knot of Gordian complexity.

Still unconscious, Daniel shifted to wrap his arm around her. She knew what he would say about her dilemma, and she also knew that his perspective would not help her to see more clearly.

He sighed, starting to stir. His fingers traced down the length of her spine, then slowly back up. They played with the wet fringes of hair on the back of her neck.

He stretched with a groan, and then his hands were back in her hair.

“You’ve been up,” he murmured.

His eyes opened slowly, blinking as they worked to focus. In the dusky room, they were dark gray.

“It didn’t stick,” she answered.

He laughed as his eyes slid shut again. He tucked her more tightly into his chest. “Good. What time is it?”

“Around four, I think.”

“Anything to worry about?”

“No. Not for right now, at least.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah, it really is.”

“This is nice,” he said.

His hand traced back up her spine again, then trailed over her right shoulder, traced lightly across her collarbone, and finally curved around the good side of her face. He tilted it up until their noses touched.

“Yes, this, too,” Alex agreed.

“More than nice,” he murmured, and she would have agreed, but he was kissing her. His hand on her face was soft, his lips soft, but the arm around her waist strained her tight against his chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held herself closer still.

It wasn’t like the car, where the pulse of the hunt had been loud in their ears, when they were still shocked and panicking. There was no horror. Just the rhythm of her heart and his, speeding without fear.

She supposed it was inevitable, the way they’d been carrying on, that given a quiet place far away, for the moment, from any danger, with just the two of them together and no interruptions, there would be nothing to keep them apart any longer.

The strange thing, then, was how it didn’t feel at all inevitable. Somehow, it was the biggest surprise of her life. It was all a jumble of opposites tumbling together in a way that left her helpless to analyze any of them. Comfortable, familiar… but also electric and new. Gentle at the same time it was extreme, both soothing and overwhelming. It was like every nerve ending in her body was lit up with dozens of conflicting stimuli simultaneously.

All she was really sure of was the Danielness of him, that core of something pure, something better than anything she’d known before. He belonged to a more excellent world than the one where she resided, and while they were part of each other, she felt like she was allowed to be there with him.

She knew her past experience with relationships was quite limited by most people’s standards, so she didn’t have much to compare this to. She’d always thought of sex as a single event that had a defined end, an effort at physical gratification that sometimes satisfied and sometimes did not.

This experience didn’t fit into the same category on any level. It was less an event and more an ongoing exploration of each other, a satisfaction of curiosity, a fascination over each little detail discovered. It wasn’t about gratification, but there was no need that wasn’t met, whether it was physical or something less definable.

She searched for the right word as they lay kissing quietly, patiently now, with the light turning red around the edges of the curtain. She wasn’t sure what to label this emotion that filled her so entirely that she thought it might stretch her skin. It was a little like that bubbly feeling that had left her smiling at the thought of him but multiplied by thousands, millions, and then fired in a crucible until every impurity, every lesser sensation, was burned out, leaving only this behind. She didn’t have a name for it. The closest she could think of was joy.

“I love you,” he whispered against her lips. “I love you.”

Maybe that was the word. She’d just never thought its definition could be so… huge.

“Daniel,” she murmured.

“You don’t have to say anything back. I just needed to say that out loud. I might have exploded had I tried to keep it in. I will probably have to say it again soon. You are forewarned.” He laughed.

She smiled. “I never want to go back to having nothing to lose. I’m glad I have you as my liability. I’m grateful. I’d have you as anything.”

She laid her head against his chest and listened to his breath moving in and out. For so long now, breathing had been her priority. If she could have spoken to the woman she was even just a month ago, she knew that woman would have been terrified of expanding that priority to include another set of lungs. That woman would have run away from needing anything more than her own life. But what she would have missed! Alex couldn’t even remember what she’d been holding on to back then. This was the kind of life worth fighting to keep.

“I think I was probably twelve, maybe thirteen, when I sort of gave up on living an extraordinary life,” he mused thoughtfully, running his fingers in aimless patterns through her hair. “That’s probably about the age that everyone starts to grow up and leave fantasy behind. You realize you’re never going to discover that you’re actually an alien, adopted by those prosaic human parents, with amazing superpowers that will save the world.” He chuckled. “I mean, you know that much earlier, but you can’t quite let go, not for years. And then the world beats you down a little, and some of the color goes out of life, and you settle for reality… I think I did a decent job of it. I found plenty of happiness in the drab, everyday world. But I want you to know – this time with you has been extraordinary. There has been terror, yes, but along with it, there’s been a kind of joy I didn’t know existed. And it’s because you are extraordinary. I’m so glad you found me. My life was destined to change drastically, it seems, in one way or another. I’m just so grateful that it got to be with you.”