Chapter 10 Briar
Chapter Ten: Briar
The kitchen is still except for the hum of the fridge and the wind scratching at the boarded windows.
The little camp lantern in the center of the table throws more shadow than light, catching the slick curve of blood on my stomach as Landon surveys the damage.
I’m shirtless, jeans slashed at the thigh from a glancing knife.
He kneels between my legs, both hands slick and red, his mouth set in a line that’s all determination and no fear.
I watch the lamp’s glow crawl over his cheekbones, making his freckles stand out.
He doesn’t ask if I’m okay. He knows better.
Instead, he cracks the first aid kit, lays out the suture kit, the bottle of clear vodka, and a roll of tape.
“Should I numb you first?” he asks. The words are quiet, and they don’t tremble.
I hold his gaze, then unscrew the bottle and take a slug that torches all the way down. The pain is hot, but distant. “Just do it.”
He threads the needle, hands steady as they could be, then wipes the cut with a stinging swipe of disinfectant.
I grunt. Landon blots the blood away and slides the needle into my skin, slow but not tentative.
The pinch is sharp, but I don’t flinch. The only noise is the clock on the stove counting down my half-life in this hole.
He works efficiently, mouth open just enough that I see the concentration in the flex of his jaw. The pain gets worse, but I like the focus it brings. I count the stitches as he goes. At seven, he stops, looks up at me.
“Hold still.”
“I’m holding.”
He shakes his head, breathes out, and keeps working.
The thread pulls tight, puckering the skin.
I’m bleeding less now, but the raw ache spreads through my gut and up my ribs.
I close my eyes and see the faces of the men I just killed.
The one with the broken nose looked at me like he recognized a kindred monster before I put a bullet in his face.
There’s a rhythm to violence and to being stitched up after: an intimacy, a control, a need that makes the world smaller and easier to manage.
Landon ties off the first stitch, then moves to the next. My hand finds the bottle, and I take another pull, the burn a better anesthetic than anything else in the kit. He’s sweating, but his hands never shake. I wonder if he’s done this before.
“Keep going,” I tell him when he slows.
He doesn’t waste words. Just cleans, threads, and pierces again. I feel every prick, every tug, but the pain is nothing compared to the need to move, to be anywhere but sitting duck in a kitchen waiting for the next team of killers.
“You ever stitched someone up before?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Lots of YouTube. You ever needed this before?”
I laugh, but it’s a short, ugly sound. “First time. I’m usually the one making the holes.”
He nods, accepting this, and finishes the run across my stomach. There’s a line of black thread now, neat and tight. He tapes a gauze pad over it, presses down until the bleeding stops, and moves to the wound on my arm.
This one’s cleaner—a smaller cut. He cleans it, pours vodka straight in, and doesn’t apologize when I hiss.
“How long do we have before the next team finds us?” he asks, focused on lining up the skin.
I check the battered digital clock, then the thin strip of light showing under the front door. “Director has officially put me on the kill list. If they’re doing it by protocol, we’ve got twenty minutes before the first drone does a sweep. An hour before the Disposals show up in person.”
He stops, the needle halfway through, and his eyes go wide. “You’re on the list?”
I nod, take another drink, and set the bottle down hard enough that the glass clicks against the table. “Yep. But I wrote the protocol for compromised assets. They’ll follow it to the letter, and I know every step.”
He finishes the stitch, mouth set hard now. “And what’s the protocol for someone like you?”
I grin, but it’s not a happy smile. “Depends on the value assessment. For mid-tier, it’s a bullet in the head, dump the body, erase the digital traces.
For top-tier, it’s exfil to a black site and a week of torture before the same outcome.
For me?” I flex my fist, feeling the line of fresh thread pull across my arm.
“They’ll go with firepower. Lots of it. They’ll want a spectacle. Also they know I’d never go quietly.”
He ties off the stitch, then wipes down the skin with gentle fingers. For a second, the air between us isn’t cold at all. He holds my arm in both hands, eyes on the cut, but his thumb strokes the inside of my wrist like he’s checking for a pulse.
“What about me?” he says, voice almost a whisper.
I tilt my head, studying him. The way he kneels between my legs, the freckles on his nose, the worry in his eyes that he tries to hide. I want to tell him he’s safe, but it would be a lie.
“They’ll kill you easily. You’re no longer a high target liability,” I say, because he deserves the truth. “Unless I get to them first.”
He processes this, then nods. “Okay.”
No fear. Just okay. Like he’s already decided.
He grabs the last bandage, tapes it tight, then stands. My blood is all over his hands. He looks down at them, then at me. He doesn’t wipe them off. He just moves to the sink and lets the water run, cold and loud in the quiet house.
I watch him. The way his hands move in the water. The way the blood washes clean. The way he won’t look at me, but won’t look away either.
He turns off the tap, shakes the water off, and grabs a towel. Suddenly, he laughs, short and sharp, and tosses the towel on the counter. “You ruin everything you touch, you know that?”
I nod. “It’s my best feature.”
He looks at me, then moves back to the table. He grabs the vodka, wipes the rim, and takes a drink.
“You’re going to have to teach me how to use a gun,” he says, eyes bright in the lamplight.
I smile, for real this time. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
He sits, thigh pressed to mine, and the pain in my side is nothing compared to the way his presence calms the rest of me. He pours two more shots, lines them up, and slides one over.
We drink in silence, but the world outside is starting to move again. The wind shakes the window. The clock ticks louder. Somewhere in the distance, a first drone buzzes low over the tree line.
I flex my hand, testing the stitches. They hold.
Landon looks at me, something fierce and almost tender in his face.
“Scared?” he asks, and for a second I think he means himself.
But he’s talking about me.
I shake my head. “Not of them.”
He nods, satisfied. “Good.”
He stands, moves to the window, and peers out through the corner of the tarp. “Should we run now, or wait until they get here?”
I watch the line of his back, the way his shoulders set. He’s afraid, but he’s not going to freeze. He’s going to fight, even if it kills him.
I like that.
Getting up, the pain in my side already dulls to a background hum, and move to the window with him. The woods outside are a black mass, but the security lights on the road catch the glint of something metallic moving low. The drone coming for a second sweep.
I touch his hand, just once, and feel the way he jumps at the contact.
“Time to go,” I say.
He looks at me, nods, and grabs the bag of supplies and guns. I check the ammo, the weight of the gun cold and familiar in my hand.
As we slip out the back, the drone passes overhead. I shoot it down with a single round, and the noise is lost in the rush of wind.
Landon looks at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“Let’s move. Got shit stashed in the shed.”
The panic of the run fades the second I kill the drone. Its metal guts leak onto the needles, and the woods snap back to silent. Landon is behind me, breathing hard, adrenaline giving him a strange kind of clarity. We get to the shed quick enough.
The safe is at chest level, disguised by a panel of fake cinderblock. I thumb the code—six digits, my father’s birthday—and the door opens with a hiss. Inside, everything is just as I left it.
Stacks of currency in neat bricks. Euros, dollars, yen, some Rubles for old times’ sake.
There’s a passport for every alias I ever burned, some of which might even get me past a border if I’m careful.
Three black market handguns, each with four full mags, wiped and oiled.
A flash drive, matte black and unlabelled, in a tamper-sealed bag.
A SAT phone. At the back, behind a box of burner SIMs, is the real prize: a drive encrypted with House Harrington’s master key.
The kind of thing that, in the wrong hands, could topple the whole city in under a day.
Landon leans in behind me, face pale in the gloom. “Is that—?”
“Everything we need to survive off-grid,” I say. “If we last that long.”
He lets out a low whistle. “You always this prepared?”
“Only when I know it’s coming.”
I load the bag, tucking the cash and passports in first, then the hardware. I pass Landon the lightest pistol, a Glock 19, and show him the safety again. He’s not ready, but that’s not the point.
“You’ll need to carry this,” I say. “Don’t shoot unless I say. Point, click. Point, click. Easy, okay? Pretend you’re playing a video game or something nerdy.”
He nods, jaw locked. The weight of it grounds him, maybe for the first time all day.
I check the window—no movement. The woods are still, the road empty. I let my breath out slow, feeling the tremor in my hands fade as I focus on the next steps.
I grab the bag and the phone. I’m about to head out the door, towards the vehicle I have stashed under a camo blanket when the SAT phone buzzes—a sound so foreign it freezes me in place.
I look at the display: “B. Brooks.”
Fuck.
I thumb the answer key. “Yeah?”
The voice is smooth, lazy, and amused. “Well, well, B. You’ve made quite a mess. There’s a price on your head, and your little friend’s too. Top of the boards, first time I’ve seen you beat your brother to something.”