Chapter 8
Three weeks ago:
Mercury: How do you know when you’ve said the wrong thing?
Binary: Usually, someone tells me. Directly or indirectly.
Mercury: That sounds exhausting.
Binary: It was. My cousins created a system. “Inside voice” means I’ve crossed a line.
Mercury: That’s actually kind of brilliant.
Binary: It’s efficient. I appreciate efficiency.
Mercury: Do you ever wish you didn’t need the system?
Binary: No. I wish more people came with user manuals. You’re the closest I’ve found.
Bear was the last one out the door.
Lincoln stood in the entryway of his house, watching his cousin and the others load gear into their trucks. The sky had lightened to pale gray while they’d been inside—dawn creeping in without permission, the way it always did. He’d lost track of time somewhere between the warehouse and now.
“You sure you don’t want one of us to stay?” Bear paused at the driver’s side of his truck, keys in hand. “Derek can crash here. Or I can send Joy a text, tell her—”
“I’m sure.”
“Linc.” Bear’s voice shifted into something more serious. “That woman up there has been through hell. You shouldn’t have to handle this alone.”
“I won’t be alone. She’s here.”
Bear and Derek exchanged a look—the kind of look they’d been exchanging over Lincoln’s head since they were children. He’d learned to recognize it even if he couldn’t always decode it. This one meant something like he’s not wrong, but he’s also missing the point.
“Okay. Call if you need anything or if…your friend needs anything,” Derek said from his own truck. “I mean it. Middle of the night, whatever. Even if it’s just because she’s tired of your ugly mug.”
“I will.”
He wouldn’t, not unless it was an absolute emergency. They all knew it. But the offer mattered in ways Lincoln didn’t have words for, so he filed it away with all the other things his family had done for him that he’d never be able to repay.
Theo lifted a hand in a wave as he climbed into his vehicle. “Take care of her, Linc. Be gentle.”
Gentle. Right. Of course. He hadn’t actually thought of that. “That’s the plan.”
Bear still hadn’t moved. His eyes searched Lincoln’s face for something—some sign of distress, some crack in the facade that would justify staying. Lincoln kept his expression neutral, which wasn’t difficult. Neutral was his default setting.
“Thank you,” Lincoln said. The words felt inadequate. Insufficient. “For coming. For helping. For not asking questions. For—” He stopped, frustrated by the limitations of language. “You drove four hours in the middle of the night because I asked. I don’t know how to quantify that.”
Bear’s expression softened. “You don’t have to quantify it. That’s what family does.”
“I know. But I want you to know that I know.”
Something flickered across Bear’s face—amusement, maybe, or affection. “I know you know, cuz.” He opened his truck door, then paused. “You’re not going to do anything stupid, right? Like try to find these people yourself before you know what you’re dealing with?”
Lincoln considered the question. The rage was there, coiled tight in his chest, waiting for a target. But rage without data was just noise. He needed information first. He needed to understand what he was walking into.
“Not yet,” he said.
Bear studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded, apparently satisfied, and climbed into his truck. The three vehicles pulled away down the long drive, taillights disappearing around the first curve.
Lincoln stood in the doorway until the gate chimed its closure. Then he turned back inside to find Annie.
She was in the kitchen, washing her hands at the sink. Her medical bag sat on the counter, already packed and ready to go.
“How is she?” Lincoln asked.
“Physically? She’ll heal. The cuts are the most notable injury. But they’re superficial—painful, but not dangerous. I’ve cleaned them and applied antibiotic ointment. The infection is mild. Oral antibiotics should handle it.”
The cuts. Lincoln’s jaw tightened. He’d caught a glimpse of them in the car, when he’d shifted her position and the blanket slipped.
Parallel lines carved into her skin—neat, deliberate, the work of someone who knew exactly what they were doing.
The image had lodged itself behind his eyes like a splinter.
“How many?” he asked.
Annie’s expression flickered. It was probably not the question a normal person would’ve asked, but she took it in stride.
“Twenty-five total. Fourteen on the left forearm, eleven on the right. Different stages of healing. They took place over days.” She paused.
“They weren’t random, Lincoln. Whoever did this was systematic. ”
The rage coiled tighter in his chest. Systematic. Like punishment. Like training.
Annie dried her hands on a towel, her movements precise and unhurried. “She’s also dehydrated and exhausted. She needs to drink and eat small amounts regularly. Nothing heavy—her stomach won’t tolerate it.”
“What about the rest of it? Was she—” He couldn’t finish the question. Even forcing out that much was nearly impossible.
The chance that Mercury—Morgan—had been sexual assaulted was high.
“She assured me she wasn’t assaulted in the way you’re thinking.”
“Do you believe her?”
Annie sighed. “I do.”
The enormity of his relief was staggering, but he didn’t say anything.
“I know people can sometimes not be forthcoming about that sort of information for multiple reasons, from shame to outright repression. But I don’t think that’s the case with Morgan. She said that the people who took her wanted her for her mind.”
He wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but he was glad she hadn’t been hurt in a sexual way. “Okay.”
“She also has some psychological damage. Anyone who was kidnapped, held against their will, and harmed would have it.” Annie set the towel down. Her eyes met his with the particular steadiness of someone who’d known him since he was born. “That’s harder to quantify.”
“Try.”
“She’s traumatized, Lincoln. Whatever happened in that place—she’s going to need time. Patience. Space to process.” Annie leaned against the counter. “She probably needs to talk to a counselor. I didn’t mention that now because she was barely conscious as it was, but it’s something to consider.”
“Is it…?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Is talking something I could help her with? I know I’m not the best with people, but…”
I care about her. He wasn’t sure how to explain his relationship with Mercury. No, he’d never met her before today, but he did care about her.
Annie smiled kindly. “You’re better with people than you give yourself credit for. You care about her, and she feels safe with you.”
“How do you know that?”
“I could tell immediately by the way she let you hold her. How she settled into you when you carried her, didn’t hold herself stiff. How she wanted you in the room even when she was about to be examined by a doctor.”
“I see.”
“So, yes, be the ear she needs. Don’t push her to talk before she’s ready. Just…be present. Be consistent. Let her set the pace.”
Lincoln absorbed this. Consistency, he could do. Patience was manageable. But the rest of it—the emotional navigation, the subtle cues he always missed—
It was as if Annie could read his mind. “You can do it.”
“What if I make it worse? Say the wrong thing?”
“Then you apologize and try again.” Annie picked up her medical bag. “She’s not made of glass, Lincoln. She survived something terrible. She’ll survive you being awkward.”
That was maybe the best news he’d heard all night.
After Annie left, Lincoln retreated to his command center. He should sleep. He knew this objectively. His body had been awake for over twenty-four hours, and the cognitive effects of sleep deprivation would begin affecting his judgment soon. He’d read the studies. He understood the data.
But sleep had never come easily to him. As a child, he’d driven his parents to exhaustion with his inability to shut down. His mother had tried everything—rigid bedtimes, white noise machines, weighted blankets. Nothing worked. His brain simply didn’t know how to stop processing.
Eventually, they’d accepted it. “Lincoln runs on different fuel,” his father used to say, not unkindly. Now, at thirty-two, Lincoln had learned to function on four or five hours a night. Sometimes less.
Tonight would be less.
His monitors glowed in the dimness, cycling through their usual displays. Security feeds. Market algorithms. Communication channels.
On the third screen from the left, the dark web portal sat silent, their forum empty. For the first time in days, that didn’t bother him.
He checked his government contacts out of habit.
Everyone had seemed to calm down. Treasury was no longer emailing him every hour.
Homeland had reduced to eleven voice mails an hour.
The FBI had filed away the anomalous access as “suspicious but noncritical.” Everyone seemed to have accepted his assessment: reconnaissance, not breach. Window-shopping.
Lincoln didn’t have the bandwidth to care about federal agencies right now.
His attention kept drifting to the security feed in the upper right corner. The camera showed the hallway outside the guest room—the door closed, the corridor empty. She hadn’t come out. It had been nearly three hours since he’d left her there.
Was that normal? Should he check on her? He had no frame of reference for this situation. No protocol for woman you’ve talked to for two years online is now traumatized in your guest room.
Morgan.
Her name was Morgan.
He said it out loud, testing the shape of it again. “Morgan.” It suited her, somehow. Strong and soft at the same time. A name with weight.
He let himself think about her face.
Auburn hair. Green-hazel eyes that had found his in the darkness of that warehouse. The particular architecture of her features—the line of her jaw, the curve of her cheek, the way her mouth had shaped his name.
Binary?
She was beautiful.