Read Paired Objective: Matched Desire, Book 2 for Free Online Page B

username and password. That meant they’d have to wipe the device clean and install something usable, which would bring the price down.
    It was also possible that one of their techs would get a parallel system up and running in the next few days. Abby wasn’t stupid enough to think they wouldn’t have backed up their data. Any tracers they might have on the commtabs might still be accessible.
    Which meant she’d have to sell these puppies soon, or not at all.
    Russ leaned against the van’s hood, fixing her with an enigmatic gaze as she climbed through the open side door to stretch her legs. She resisted the urge to stare back, pacing instead. Ten medium steps up the length of the van, ten steps back, treading on asphalt so cracked it was mostly dirt inside one huge pothole.
    At least the fuel pumps still worked, protected by two gun-toting civilians who were likely employed by the station’s owner. The attached convenience store looked to be thoroughly looted and deserted.
    Shame. She would kill for a candy bar right about now. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten for ages. Abby altered her trajectory so that she could pace by the broken windows of the little store.
    Nothing on the shelves remained. Not that she’d expected anything different. When Mom was alive, they’d stuck to looting small towns where the pickings weren’t as slim as a fallen city’s. Of course, then they’d had to contend with the presence of the Barks, holing up each night while praying the aliens wouldn’t sniff them out. Ironically, in the end, Mom hadn’t died a violent death. She’d gotten sick—probably cancer, not that they could have diagnosed it—and died relatively quickly and peacefully.
    Abby had looted the hell out of a drugstore to make the peaceful part possible. Morphine and more morphine had let Mom die in peace.
    A cracked windowpane reflected Russ’s approach, briefly bisecting his image so that there were two of him. She nearly laughed. Triplets. Now that would be something. She stood and watched him approach, his closely cropped hair barely ruffling in the heavy wind. It was strange to feel fresh air, even stranger to recognize the heaviness before a storm. How long had it been since she’d stood in the rain?
    “Abby. Come with me now. We’re done here.”
    It took the firmness of Russ’s hands on her shoulders to jar her out of her melancholy. He steered her away from the long-broken glass and across the cracked pavement of the gas station. All at once, Abby whirled to face him.
    “How do you know my grandmother?” she demanded.
    “Cam flew the cargo plane that picked her up out of Scar City.”
    The answer was quick and easy, sounding very much like the truth. But Grammie would never have left her house willingly, even if the City was falling down around her ears. Had these men kidnapped her? Was the reigning government just as bad as the Shadow Feds?
    If so, Abby couldn’t go with the Twins. The thought of being manacled again, of being stuck underground, made her want to retch. She had no proof Grammie was alive—the info they had could have been dug up in the elderly woman’s house. Had they looted her house when Scar City had fallen?
    No, she couldn’t quite believe that—not of these particular men, that was.
    “In we go,” Russ urged.
    Against her better judgment, Abby trusted him, piling into the back of the van. She settled stiffly atop the bench seat and looked back at Russ. “Where’s Cam?”
    Something in his gaze went soft as he looked back at her. “Cam’s rustling up some grub. Are you all right, Abby?”
    “Not really.” She hadn’t meant to say that. Hadn’t meant to sound so vulnerable. And, oh God, now he was coming in to sit next to her, his blue eyes concerned.
    “What’s wrong?”
    His directness was probably born of not knowing what the hell to do around women. Abby felt much the same around men. Her fiancé, Callum, had been a childhood friend, so