Read Now: First Chapter of 'Bullet to the Head'

I used to hate lazy mornings.

In the past, I’d always been up at the break of dawn, ready to grab an early workout before my morning briefing with Slater. Sometimes I left for a mission before there was light on the horizon, but never once had I complained. My line of work required discipline. Any laziness had been drilled out of me over the years—including sleeping in. 

But something about living outside of the law of the land made even self-inflicted rules go out the window. Which is why I blinked awake late one fall morning, noticed how far the sunlight had crept into the room, and promptly laid back down.

My hand stretched out, curving around Laiken’s warm body, snuggled under a thick quilt in an effort to shake the late-autumn chill that had settled over Texas. That served as an unpleasant reminder to the pile of firewood needing to be chopped before the weather turned cold and a layer of ice settled over everything. I had planned on doing it today, first thing in the morning. But one look at Laiken’s face, serene in sleep, and I decided it could wait.

My past self would be appalled at my current state, but I was too asleep to care.

I pressed a kiss to Laiken’s neck. She stirred, and I found myself looking into a pair of ocean-blue eyes.

“Hey, Bull,” she yawned. “Is it morning already?”

“Unfortunately so.” Sunlight pooled on the floor. “It’s almost afternoon, actually.”

Laiken groaned and stretched her arms overhead. I caught a glimpse of the Safe Zones insignia on the back of her gray t-shirt—my shirt, technically. I didn’t know when exactly she stole it, but at some point several of my shirts wound up on her side of the room, and she started wearing them as nightgowns. They were huge on her, hanging to her mid-thigh when she stood upright. My lips curved upwards as I tucked an arm under my head.

Laiken followed my gaze and frowned at the window. “Weren’t we supposed to go to Freeport today?”

“Tomorrow. I need to finish the firewood today.” 

“Right.” She glanced at me hopefully. “You don’t need help with that, right?”

I lifted a brow. “Your help would be greatly appreciated.”

“Let me rephrase that.” Laiken leaned in and kissed me, soft and lazy. “You don’t need help with that, right?”

My lips twitched. “I guess I can manage.”

“Excellent.” 

And with that, she was gone, sauntering out of the room with a wink. Still on the bed, I laughed to myself, even as I winced at the cool air that rushed to fill the place where Laiken was only moments before.

Lazy morning, indeed.

---

Rays from the setting sun stretched my shadow out behind me, the sunlight not quite warm enough to offset the chill in the air. The cold didn’t stop sweat from trickling down the back of my neck as I hefted the axe over my head. It came down with a thump, splitting the log cleanly in half and sending the pieces tumbling to the ground. 

I paused, swiping a hand over my brow underneath the cowboy hat. A pile of chopped wood sat in front of me, growing taller with every minute that passed. A good few hours of work still remained, but it was getting too dark to see anything. Some of it would have to wait until tomorrow.

I set another piece of wood on the stump and lifted the axe. I grunted as I brought it down again. The wood split, and I chucked the halves onto the pile, already reaching for another when Laiken’s voice cut through the silence.

“Did you chop the entire forest down?”

I turned to see her leaning against a nearby tree, fiddling with the assortment of bracelets decorating her wrists. Her blue hair was twisted into a high ponytail, a jacket thrown over her usual tank top and denim shorts. She eyed the pile of wood before glancing at me with raised brows.

“I’m almost done,” I said, setting up another log. It split as evenly as the ones before it. “Did you need something?”

“I made supper.”

Right on cue, my stomach rumbled. “Ten more minutes?”

She nodded and headed back for the house. But she returned as I was cutting the last piece, a plate of food balanced in one hand, a glass of water in the other. 

“It’s a nice evening,” she remarked. “Might as well take advantage of it.”

I sat down on the stump I’d used as a cutting block and gulped down the water. Laiken wedged herself next to me, and the two of us sat in silence while I ate.

“You’re quiet,” I noted. 

“Oh?”

“What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“You’re nosy.” She tipped the hat off my head, exposing my sweat-slicked hair. It had grown out in the last few months—usually I had kept it cut pretty short, but now it was long enough for the ends to curl in on themselves, and despite my best efforts, it always looked messy. Laiken stuck her tongue out at me as I leaned down to pick up the hat. “I was just listening to the ocean, if you must know.”

From our position, I could just hear the waves crashing against the distant rocks. After the showdown with the Vipers four months ago, Laiken and I had been out of options. The church was destroyed, and the Vipers’ base reeked of death, so we ended up returning to the ocean house. It had taken several trips back and forth for me to haul all our supplies down here, and Laiken had opted to stay behind. Those days spent away had tormented me with worry, the memory of what happened when I last left her all too fresh on my mind, but I had nothing to fret about. By the time I returned from the last trip, Laiken had cleaned up the house, cleared broken furniture and swept floors, washed windows and countertops, and even went as far to cover the message Nico had left on the wall with blue spray paint. It had taken several more weeks to fix broken windows and doors, to find new furniture in Freeport and rig up a wagon big enough to drag it back here, but when we finished…

It looked like a home.

Before long, it felt like it, too. The corner of the living room became our designated space to play Dare. The bedroom turned into Laiken’s favorite place to curl up and sketch, and it wasn’t long before she allowed me to sit next to her and watch. The fire pit outside was where we laughed over her burnt meals, the front door was where we worked together to repair the broken frame, and the stretch of beach just down the shoreline was where Laiken spent all summer teaching me how to swim. It was more than just a place on a map; it was four month’s worth of happiness I had never known before. The gash on my head where I slammed it on the metal table at the Vipers’ base—Laiken still wasn’t convinced I hadn’t given myself a concussion—quickly healed over, leaving a thick scar just below my hairline, and as it faded, so did our memories of the Vipers and their attacks.

I set my empty plate aside and draped my arm over Laiken’s shoulders. She leaned into me, unbothered that I was a sweaty mess, and the two of us sat wordlessly, listening to the ocean.

These last four months… It was new to me. Learning to be comfortable around someone else. The transition between being a nervous fool around Laiken to finding peace in her presence. Picking up on her quirks and habits and facial expressions and hiding my surprise when she picked up on mine. Figuring out what she liked, then striving each day to put that smile I loved so much on her face.

I was happy. Sometimes at night, when I was alone with my thoughts in a dark room, I wondered how I’d ever lived before.

Laiken stiffened as the crash of water against the rocks gave way to a much harsher sound—the snarl of mutants. We shot to our feet, my hand instinctively going to the pistol I always kept at my side. After everything with the Vipers, we’d taken great care to stay out of the way of any other rogues or exiles. The only ones we’d encountered were individuals we spotted from a distance but made no move to interact with. But this was the wastelands, and just because we were alone didn’t mean that there weren’t monsters to fight.

I pivoted, scanning the trees. “Where are they coming from?”

“I can’t tell,” Laiken said, tilting her head. “It sounds like a lot.”

“Might be a herd.”

She shuddered. “I hope not.”

We fell quiet as the growls grew louder. I was finally able to pinpoint the sound, coming from the north.

Laiken retreated a step. “We should get back.”

The noise grew louder, where even I was uncomfortable with it. I holstered my pistol and grabbed Laiken’s hand, giving it a light squeeze. “Let’s go.”

We turned toward the house, intending to cut through the trees before the herd reached us. But we froze as three mutants stumbled out of the undergrowth, their bloodshot eyes fixed right on us.

PREORDER BULLET TO THE HEAD