The next ten days were relentless.

I knew they were going to be tough, the hours packed to burst with as much preparation as we could possibly squeeze in. The physical toll was to be expected, despite how much stronger I'd become since arriving in Birmingham, where manual labour and miles of walking were part of the daily routine. It was the mental impact I hadn't thought would be so weighty. Rapid was progress was not only expected, but non-negotiable; we had no option but to nail every skill, technique and detail, or somebody else's life could be on the line.

So, no pressure.

The days went quickly, too – slipping faster through my fingers the more I tried to keep hold of them. One minute, we were at the start of the journey, watching Nova's apprehensive demonstrations and taking shaky turns ourselves. The next, night had fallen on the evening we were due to leave.

Just twelve hours between now and what could be the beginning of the end.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this thought didn't make it any easier to sleep, regardless of how loudly my fatigued body was crying out for a spot of rest. The exhaustion had long since crossed the boundary into terrified exhilaration. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't let the tension seep out of my muscles long enough to let myself sink into the mattress; instead, I lay stiff as a board, staring at the ceiling.

Really, I knew where I was always going to end up.

So before long, I was out of my room and down the corridor.

Slipping into Jace's room was no longer an unusual occurrence, so I didn't wait for a muffled reply after the three quiet knocks on his door. In fact, it felt nothing less than routine as I crossed his room in the darkness, lifted up the covers and slid into bed beside him.

"Hey," came his voice, before I'd even said a word.

"Hey."

Without request, his arm shifted until it was around my shoulders, pulling me closer to his side. Close enough to smell the soap on his skin and the shampoo on his hair; I now took notice of the little details, like how he preferred evening showers, and scrubbed so hard with the plain bar soap it seemed to seep into his pores. Once upon a time, being wrapped up in his arms like this would've made my heart flutter – but now it felt as natural as breathing. It was funny how things could change.

"How are you feeling?" he asked softly.

I went to answer, but the words vanished at the last minute, coming out as a long breath instead. One that sounded even heavier against the night-time quietness. "I don't know," I said eventually. "Probably about the same as you right now."

My head bobbed with his soft chuckle. "That bad?"

"I'm holding up," I said. "Just about. It would be weirder if I was completely calm, right?"

"Yeah. That's true."

His voice trailed off, but his thumb had found the side of my arm, and the slow back-and-forth motion against my skin was confirmation enough that he was still present. There was also something loaded about the silence, and I knew more was on the way. "I just wanted to say," he said eventually, "that I really admire what you did. It was so brave."

"What do you mean?"

"Standing up to Nova," he said. "We wouldn't be doing all this tomorrow if it wasn't for you. There wasn't a plan to rescue Orla and the others. You fought for what was right, and you changed something."

"Oh." It was all I could manage; I was slightly taken aback. I hadn't thought of it that way, let alone expected others to see what I'd been trying to do. "I'm not sure it was brave. There was no guarantee she was going to listen to me. I just... couldn't live with myself if I didn't say something."

"Which makes it all the more admirable." Jace's hand stilled on my arm. Again, there was more to the silence than lack of words; I could just tell there was something more running through his head. He sighed. "To be honest... part of me is surprised I'm even coming along at all."

I frowned. "What?"

A slight pause. "I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. But have you noticed... that Nova seems to be keeping her distance from me?"

I shifted up onto my elbows. "What do you mean?"

"Like I said, it could be me being stupid," he continued. "Maybe it's the pressure of training messing with my head. But this last week or so... I don't know. Ten days, we've been with Nova pretty much nonstop – and yet the whole time, she's barely looked in my direction, let alone said more than a couple of words to me."

He shook his head. "I thought maybe she felt awkward, that she was psyching herself up to break the news to me that I wasn't part of this mission at all. Either because I'm too valuable as some kind of poster boy... or simply because I haven't got a fucking clue what I'm doing, and there's a very real chance of me running the entire plan for the rest of you."

"Jace, that's not—"

"You don't have to be kind. I know I'm not cut out for this kind of thing, and it's certainly not in my background. But it doesn't matter. We've reached this point now, where we're leaving tomorrow, and that explanation is long gone. I'm definitely coming with you... so it must be something else."

I didn't know what to say. Was he right? Already, I was racking my brain for memories of the last few days, combing through the sequence of perfect recollections for evidence either way.

So badly I wanted to prove him wrong. Thinking along these lines the night before such an important mission was not going to do him any good; above all else, we needed to have confidence in our leader.

My sister.

The reason we were all here in the first place.

And yet the more I thought about it, the more I could see his point. Nova wasn't exactly known for being an overly emotional, touchy-feely character – let alone when we were preparing for something so serious. But maybe there had been something different about her this week. Of course, there was the lingering weirdness from her being outed as Eden Clarke, which had naturally led to some space between her and Jace while they figured things out. But she'd never let that get in the way of practicalities before. She was as stoic and pragmatic as needed to get our work done.

This week, however, she'd barely spoken to Jace. Barely looked him in the eye. In fact, the only times she'd acknowledged his presence was when he'd been doing something obviously wrong – and even then, her corrective instructions were as clipped as possible before moving on. She hadn't allowed herself to be near him any longer than strictly necessary.

"I wondered if I'd done something to upset her," Jace continued, "but I can't think of anything that's happened lately. I acted more of a dick when we first got here. And it's hardly likely that she'd start resenting me for that now."

"Maybe she's just stressed," I offered, though I wasn't sure this could fully explain it. "She's not always a ray of sunshine to me, either. It's probably not anything personal. Things have been rough lately, and they've taken their toll on everybody."

"Yeah, I guess," Jace said, his voice heavy. I could tell he wasn't totally convinced.

"It's a weird night all round," I continued. "Saying things have happened quickly would be the understatement of the century. I know that I'm intending to go in there tomorrow and come back out unscathed – and I'm pretty sure everybody else is, too – but it does still have that strange, night-before-the-end-of-the-world feeling."

"It does, doesn't it?" Jace's breath escaped him in a shaky chuckle. There was a short space of silence before he spoke again. "Isn't that the kind of feeling that usually makes people do crazy things? Like, fuck it, I might not be here tomorrow?"

"Yeah. But I'm not sure I'd call them crazy."

He looked at me questioningly. "No?"

I shook my head. "They're more like... the things you always wanted to happen someday. The things you don't want to die without them happening. I guess they can seem crazy in the moment, but... I think there's always a little more thought behind it."

"Huh." Jace paused. "I guess that makes sense."

"A bit of danger isn't going to turn somebody into a completely different person, you know?" I said. "However spontaneous it seems... well, chances are, they've been thinking about whatever it is for a long time."

It was too dark to make out his face in the darkness, with only a single strip of moonlight filtering through the gap in the blinds, but I could tell he was looking right at me. The unwavering contact sent a shiver down my spine.

"What about you?" he asked, when the silence became too heavy to bear. "Are you planning on doing anything like that tonight?"

An electric current seemed to surge through the air between us. I paused for a second, letting the words roll around on my tongue, before daring to let them escape. After this, there would be no going back. "Actually," I said, in a low voice, "there's one thing I had on my mind."

His eyes stayed locked on mine. For one loaded moment, neither of us moved; we were trapped in a snapshot of time as the implication of my words hung in the air. Something was about to happen between us. Sooner or later, the inevitable would come rushing in like the tide. It was just a matter of who moved first.

"Astrid," he breathed, but didn't get any further.

Because by that point, I'd lowered my head and pressed my lips against his.

The response was immediate; he came to life like the surge of electricity had run right through his body. His lips moved frantically against mine while his hands cupped the side of my face, pulling me closer. It wasn't the first time we'd found solace in each other like this, but from the off, I could tell there was something different at play here. A sense of urgency that had never before come to the surface.

He couldn't get enough. And neither could I.

The sheets tangled around my back as I rolled over, positioning myself over him so I could feel every inch of our bodies pressed together. The movement caused our lips to part for a few short seconds, but even that felt like too much; he wasted no time in pulling me back so he could capture my lips again.

It just felt right, in a way that I couldn't explain. There were plenty of nights this could've happened before – this breakthrough in physical intimacy, the desire to take things further than ever. There'd always been a hesitancy to it before: a pause long enough to wonder, even in the moment, if we were doing the right thing. No matter how many times I convinced myself the answer was yes, it didn't change that I'd asked the question in the first place.

Tonight, though, there wasn't a thought left in my head.

Just this.

When my hands started wandering, however, it was enough to bring him back to his senses. "Astrid," he breathed, our lips breaking apart as one of his palms found mine. "Are you sure about this?"

"Of course," I said, meeting his gaze. "Are you?"

Even before he said anything, I could see his answer blazing in the fire behind his eyes. I couldn't stop my own from roaming all over his face, feeling the rush of thrill at the sight of his flushed face and mussed hair. "Yeah, I am," he said. "I just don't want this whole night-before-the-end-of-the-world thing to make you feel like you're under any pressure."

The ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of my lips. "Don't worry," I assured him. "There's definitely thought behind this, too."

And that was enough for our lips to meet again, moving slightly slower this time, with all of the passion but none of the rush. I could feel everything so much more intensely, like the way one of his hands was placed gently on the back of my head, the other scrunching the fabric at the back of my T-shirt. A tingle ran through my body as I felt his lips gently coax mine open, his tongue brushing my own. There was no way I could doubt this. When something felt this right, there was no question about whether to keep going.

In all my eighteen years of life, I'd never met anyone like Jace. No one that even came close. And it wasn't just the extraordinary circumstances that had brought us together, either. Perhaps the close scrapes and crazy situations had been part of the pull in the first place, but now I felt like I knew him better than ever. I'd uncovered so much more than I'd even begun to while we were still in New London.

Since being here in Birmingham... things had changed in more ways than one.

This time, when my hands began their exploration once more, there was no reaction – apart from the visible tightening of his muscles as my hands brushed bare skin. Our lips slowed even further, letting my fingers take the lead as they forged a new path. I could feel every hitch of his uneven breath, the peaks and troughs that matched each movement.

That night, we crossed a line, venturing into new territory within the safe bubble of his room. There was no pressure, no obligation – just a window of opportunity before the sun came up and our plans were set into motion.

Once that happened, things had the potential to change forever.

For now, all we could do was make the most of the certainty we had left.

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When you're struggling with the story... give the readers what they want. Because most of the time, they know best.

Any and all thoughts welcome (especially positive ones).

- Leigh