The change in him still made no sense. He’d never been emotional or charming. He treated her as work and she never took it as an insult because that’s exactly what she was. One of the people he watched over. He and a team, but she dealt almost exclusively with him. That was the point of the program—secrecy. For it to work, only a limited number of people could have the real details about her life.

“It’s too cold to use the boat.” Between the air and the water kicking up the sides, they’d freeze. She doubted the small engine would even work. It would be useless and she needed him to know that.

“We’ve been through worse.”

It had been eight months since they practiced any survival skills. Ned was killed in prison, stabbed while eating lunch in the dining hall when he refused to give up his seat. The news termed it as a turf war of some sort. An inside prison sort of thing. She always struggled to believe that was true because Ned wasn’t the type to walk into the middle of a battle he knew he couldn’t win. But she had no idea what the truth was and never would. One of her many fears—a new one she never expected—was that her end would become a big mystery like Ned’s was.

“I haven’t prepped the boat for winter.” A few days ago she planned to show off her favorite place to Connor. Now she might die there.

Evan shot her a quick look while maneuvering through the overgrown path. “I doubt that you would be so careless with your life.”

“I got complacent.” That was the only explanation for her failure to see that Evan had unraveled. She noticed it all now. The lash in his voice and the underlying current of darkness that ran through him. It swirled around him, infecting everything from his walk to the way he snarled and snapped at people.

He’d changed. Some invisible switch clicked inside him. And for some reason, he aimed his obsession at her.

“You were lazy.” He swerved to miss a stump lying half over the makeshift road.

The quick move sent her slamming into the door. Her head banged off the window. “Damn.”

“You’re fine.”

She rested the injured spot against the cold glass, letting the icy slickness ease the throbbing. “If you say so.”

“But those lazy days are over. You’ll learn from this experience and not repeat it. We’ll be more dedicated to your training. I can take the time and mold you.”