36. Killian
KILLIAN
The morning light is a flat, white glare.
It hits the kitchen island and pulses against my skull.
I’ve managed a few hours of broken sleep over the last ten days, but the weight of this house never lets up.
Not since she found the logs. The files that detail exactly how I killed her father.
The victims from the other sites Julian is still running.
Living in this house is a slow crawl through a minefield.
One side is the memory of who we were. The other is what we’ve become.
I spend the nights watching the security monitors, waiting for her nightmares to start, or waiting for her to come and tell me she can’t stand to look at me anymore.
She hasn't yet. Instead, she’s become something else.
Calm. Focused. Hunting those red dots on the map like they’re the only thing keeping her anchored to the earth.
I weigh the coffee grounds and watch the scale hit twenty grams. My hands are steady if I look at the numbers, but the fatigue is a slow, grinding pressure behind my eyes.
I’m operating on the kind of empty that makes my vision tunnel, my jaw a permanent, aching lock.
It’s the price for watching her reconstruct herself into a mirror of me.
The universe's sick, fucked-up mockery—I’m weaponizing the one person I wanted to keep pure.
The machine hums, a low-frequency vibration that matches the server rack downstairs, Jackson's hardware currently eating through Julian's firewalls one layer at a time. I check the tablet Gabe installed. The monitors show green. All clear. But the quiet inside this house is louder than any alarm. It’s the kind of silence that follows a gunshot.
"Morning, sunshine. You look like shit."
Gabe's voice pulls me from my thoughts. He's leaning in the doorway, holding a paper bag that smells of butter and sugar.
"Fuck off,” I say, sliding a mug of black coffee across the counter.
He drops the bag. A cherry Danish rolls out, sticky and sweet. “Eat,” he says. “You're no good to her if you collapse.”
I take a bite. The sugar hits my tongue and does nothing. I’m just fueling a machine that’s running on fumes.
“Julian is throwing a tantrum,” Gabe says. His voice is a low rumble. “He lost three more security teams chasing the fake pings Jackson is looping through the old shipping hubs. He’s wasting men in New York and California, raiding empty warehouses while we sit here in the quiet.”
"Let him waste them." I glance at the tablet where a map displays seventeen red dots.
Gabe follows my gaze.
"I installed the new sensors yesterday. Jackson’s deep in the hub downstairs. We’re ready to move."
He doesn't have to say it. I've memorized every one of those dots on the map. It's about time we went out there and started burning them to the fucking ground.
"How is she?" Gabe watches the steam from his mug.
"She's alright. Better than I’d be. She spent half the night up with Jackson, digging into the Colorado files. She’s using her father’s case-mapping techniques, Gabe. She’s finding the patterns Julian thought he buried. She's done being a fucking victim."
"Tough woman."
“The toughest I've ever met.”
Gabe watches me for a moment, his eyes hard. "You need sleep, Killian. Even for an hour or two."
"I'll sleep when it's over."
He doesn't ask what it is. He knows the list in my head. Julian Ross, dead. The facilities burned to the ground. Ellie, safe.
Gabe holds my gaze for a second, then reaches for the tablet. "I've got the monitoring covered," he says. "Jackson’s mapping the Seattle supply line. Go take breakfast in to her."
I nod and turn to the tray. I watch her through the doorway.
She’s in the sunroom chair, the one that looks out at the water.
She told me once that it reminded her of a trip to a lake when she was seven.
Before I existed. Before the world was just a series of astronomical fuck-ups.
Her eyes are fixed on a heron hunting across the water.
The light's blinding today, bouncing off the lake. I’m finally starting to understand how she works now. I move slowly now, staying where she can see me. She won't eat until I do. If I reach too fast, she's out of that chair before I can blink.
She’s wrapped in a blanket, her face still turned toward the glass when I set the tray down on the rattan table.
Slowly, she pulls her gaze away from the lake and looks at me, those hazel eyes tracking my every move.
Jackson’s laptop is settled in the woven cushions next to her, the screen a grid of maps and red dots.
"Morning," I say. I’ve stopped moving with the tip-toe caution of the first few days, but I still give her enough room to feel like she’s the one in control of the space.
"Morning," she responds. Her voice is stronger, but the warmth is gone, replaced by a cold, sharp edge.
The marks on her wrists are nearly gone now. The oil-slick bruises faded to a faint yellow that’s almost invisible under the bright light. Her physical wounds are healing. Her eyes focus on the tea I pour, adding honey the way she likes it. Her fingers close around the mug without a slip.
"The mountains are beautiful," she says after taking a sip. "I've only been to Montana once before."
"It's about as far from Julian as we could get," I say, leaning back in the chair.
She looks at her mug, then back at the screen. "How long has it been, Killian? Ten days?"
"Ten days today."
She traces the rim of the cup. "It feels like we've been in this house forever. And like no time has passed at all."
"That's normal," I assure her. "Kai says your sense of time will even out."
She takes a piece of toast, examining it before taking a small bite. The habit of checking for drugs is still there, wired into her reflexes.
She looks at me for a long beat, her gaze heavy and searching, before she turns her focus back to the maps on the screen.
Jackson appears in the doorway, laptop tucked under his arm. He looks between us, clear hesitation in his eyes.
"It's okay," Ellie says, surprising us both with the shift in her awareness. "You can come in."
Jackson enters, nodding to her before turning to me. "I've finally cracked the encryption on the rest of the Colorado drive. We have the locations. They're definitely the prototype site."
He sets up at the table. Ellie rises from her chair, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders, and moves to join him. She settles into the third chair, eyes focused on the screen with unmistakable determination.
"The facilities," Jackson begins, pulling up the map. "I've accessed the blueprints for three. They’re all registered under the Horizon Medical Group, disguised as private psychiatric clinics and long-term care retreats. Security details, staff rotations, the whole fucking works."
Ellie leans forward, her eyes fixed on the red dots. "Which of these sites is holding the most women?"
Jackson pulls up a list of warehouse logs. "Based on the amount of food and medical supplies going in, these five are the busiest. They're housing at least thirty women each."
I watch her, waiting for her to look away, but she doesn’t.
She reads through the lists of supplies and staff names with the same look she used to have when she was deep in her old case notes.
She isn’t hiding from the details anymore.
She’s picking them apart, looking for the cracks in Julian’s backyard.
"This one." Ellie points to the Colorado site. "Grace mentioned it specifically. It’s where she developed the protocol before implementing it elsewhere. If we hit this, we hit the source."
Jackson looks at me, impressed. "I'll focus decryption there."
"The Order is shifting resources," he continues, showing satellite imagery of convoy movements. "Julian is consolidating. He's afraid."
"He should be," I say, the edge in my voice impossible to hide.
Ellie's hand stops dead. She’s staring right through the monitor, her eyes going flat as if the light just went out behind them. I know that look. She isn't in Montana anymore. One mention of Julian being afraid and she’s back in that fucking room with Grace. She’s gone.
"Jackson," I say quietly. "Give us a moment."
He closes the laptop and slips out. I remain perfectly still. I don't touch her. I don't move.
"Ellie." I keep my voice low. "Stay here."
Her breathing comes in short, sharp gasps. Eyes vacant. She's not seeing me.
I don't move. My hands are fists at my sides.
"You're in Montana. The chair. The lake outside." I keep talking, waiting for her to come back. "Sun's out. Tea's right there. I'm here."
Gradually, the breathing slows. Her eyes focus, returning from the dark.
She looks at me with a vulnerability that makes my heart break.
Without warning, she leans toward me, seeking contact.
I open my arms and she moves into them, pressing against my shirt as a wave of tension runs through her.
I hold her carefully, expecting her to pull away, but she doesn't. She nestles closer.
I don’t say a word. I pull her closer, my jaw locked so tight it aches. Grace is already dead in the ground, but I’d kill her a thousand times over for every second she spent poisoning Ellie's head.
"Grace wanted me to believe I was already gone," she says, her voice quiet. "That nobody was looking for someone who didn't exist anymore."
I tighten my hold. "She was wrong. I will always find you. I waited a lifetime to find you. I'd do it again. And again. I'll destroy anyone who tries to take you from me."
She relaxes against me. We stay like that until the focus returns to her eyes. When she pulls away, she's back.
By afternoon, Kai arrives for a check-up. I take the empty mugs back to the kitchen to give them some room. I’ve learned when she needs me there and when she needs the kind of privacy a man like me can’t provide.
I wait out on the porch, watching the shadows stretch across the grass, until Kai comes out a half-hour later.
"She's getting her strength back," Kai says, shifting his bag to his shoulder. "Physically, there’s nothing wrong with her that food and sleep won’t fix."
I just nod. I don't need the specifics. Some things don't belong to me, and my only job is to keep the house standing while she works the rest out.
"The fog will still come back sometimes," Kai warns. "It’s been a long week and a half. Just be there when it clears."
I go back inside and find her asleep in the chair. I leave her there until the sun starts to set, and she wakes, moving out to the deck. I join her with a blanket and a fresh mug of tea.
"Mind if I join you?"
"Please."
We watch the sun drop behind the mountains, the sky cooling into a deep, washed-out indigo.
"We're going to shut them down," she says. Her voice is low, but it doesn't shake. "All seventeen."
"When you're ready."
"I'm going to work with Jackson," she says. "I know how she thinks. How she breaks people. I can tell you which sites are at the breaking point. Which ones we have to hit first."
"No field operations," I say.
"Not yet." She gives me a look that’s sharper than any blade I’ve ever carried.
"I want to prove her wrong," she whispers. "She said I'd be too broken to function."
"You already are."
She leans in, her shoulder pressing against mine. I stay still, barely breathing, letting her decide how close she wants to be.
"I'm glad you found me," she whispers.
"I’ll always find you," I respond.
She drifts off against my shoulder, her breathing evening out for the first time since we got here.
I don't move. My arm starts to go numb, but I’d stay this way all night if it meant she kept sleeping.
Above us, the stars start to cut through the dark.
Somewhere, Julian is still looking for us.
He has no idea that the roles have flipped.
He has no idea we’re already on our way to find him.