Chapter Twenty-Seven
Raine
I wake before I want to. Before my body is ready. Before the sky even thinks about sunrise. Still, I slept longer than I expected. Enough to keep me upright. Not quite enough to feel…human.
Asher sits in the chair near the bed. Between me and the door. Always. Between me and potential danger. His eyes are closed, but he holds himself in a way that tells me he’s alert. Braced for anything.
I shift up to sitting slowly, testing my ribs. They twinge, a small involuntary sound catching in my throat—half gasp, half breath. Quiet, but not quiet enough.
He’s awake before I finish straightening. His spine comes online like a switch flipped, his eyes opening instantly, with none of the fog most people have after sleep.
He meets my gaze. “Morning.”
I blink, still trying to catch up to how fast he surfaced. “Is it?”
A ghost of a smile warms something deep inside me. “Technically.”
He braces a hand on his thigh, then gets to his feet. There’s a brief hitch in his right shoulder before he straightens fully.
It’s small. Quick.
Most people wouldn’t notice.
I do.
From the old injury? Or spending most of the past two days in that chair? Maybe both?
“Tea?” he asks.
I nod, sliding my legs over the edge of the bed. “Tea.”
He watches me for a heartbeat—checking, calibrating—then heads for the door.
“Come out when you’re ready,” he says.
I pull in a breath, steady myself, then push to my feet. The room only tilts for a moment before I find my footing. My shoulder warns me it’s not playing around, but the rest of my injuries are more like background noise now.
My fingers catch on the tangles in my hair. Too long without my normal “routine.” Too many days dehydrated and depleted, adrenaline and cortisol and pure panic wrecking my body in ways I may never fully recover from.
The sounds coming from the kitchen are so familiar, so achingly normal, that they tug at me harder than I want to admit.
Water filling a kettle.
The click of the burner.
Coffee beans hitting the grinder.
I didn’t know how much I missed the quiet routine of morning. Or…of anything after eight days of enforced chaos.
The rich, smooth scent of coffee curls around me as I make my way slowly—never far from the wall for support—into the main room. For a moment, my eyes sting.
I used to start each day with a cup at home. Good beans, ground the way I like them, brewed at the perfect temperature so they were never bitter. Sitting on my couch looking out over the mountains in the distance. It was as close as I ever came to meditation.
I miss that version of myself. The one who could truly relax. Who didn’t jump at every sound.
I want her back.
Asher stands at the counter, depresses the plunger on a French press, then glances over at me, tracking my gaze to the dark brew.
Without a word, he fills his mug with coffee and holds it out to me.
Another question where the answer doesn’t come with consequences.
I take it carefully, both hands wrapped around the porcelain. My stomach twists.
The taste sparks across my tongue. I only take one sip. A second would be too much. My stomach warns me it’s not ready for that yet. But the first…the first was perfect.
“It’s strong,” I murmur. “Tea is…probably safer today.”
“It’ll be ready in two minutes,” he says.
Our fingers nearly brush when I hand the mug back to him. My body doesn’t protest the proximity.
I file that away.
“What about food?” He leans back against the counter, hands loose at his sides. “Eggs? Toast?”
“Toast. I…I can make it. I want…” My cheeks heat. “I want to try.”
He doesn’t move toward the bread. Just nods, then shifts so I have a clear path to the toaster.
“Do you…want one too?” I ask.
Asher’s eyes crinkle at the edges. “That would be nice.”
Every step takes more concentration than it should. Opening the bag. Pulling out two slices, maneuvering them into the toaster, depressing the lever.
Asher removes the tea bag and carries both mugs to the table.
I manage everything except the butter. It’s cold, too firm for me to cut. But Asher doesn’t say a word. Simply pulls a knife from the drawer, and adds a pat to each piece.
I eat slowly. Small bites. My hands only shake a little. Asher slathers his toast with peanut butter before he sinks into the chair next to me.
“Where do you want to work?” he asks. “Couch or table?”
“Table.” I don’t hesitate. “This…I need to sit up. To feel…like I’m on solid ground.”
“Fair enough. If it gets to be too much, let me know. Taking a break doesn’t mean giving up.”
I crack a weak smile. “I’ve never been great at recognizing my own limits.”
“Mind if I check in every so often?” After a beat, he adds, “You can say no.”
“You can check in. But I may push back.”
Asher inclines his head. “I’d expect nothing less. I’ll get the laptop.”
This time, I don’t feel the need to track his movements as he disappears into the bedroom. When he returns, he sets the laptop between us—angled so I don’t have to twist or lean and aggravate my ribs.
The tea warms my hands, the light scent soothing my nerves as the computer boots up.
Asher lets out a slow breath. “Yesterday, while you were sleeping, I dug into the data a bit. Can I give you the basics?”
I nod.
“The physical site houses three different entities,” he says. “Northbridge Containment, LLC, Kovacs Resolution Partners, and Coherent Path, Inc. Do any of those names ring a bell?”
“Kovacs…maybe.” I close my eyes and let my mind cycle through old briefings, half-remembered reports, operations that never quite sat right. “They primarily relocate people?”
“Yes. Forcefully. But unless something goes wrong, their targets live. Northbridge extracts information through pain. That’s where my target was initially sent. I’ve dealt with them a time or two.”
He hesitates. “Coherent Path is different. An unknown. I made a few casual inquiries to my contacts. No one’s gotten back to me yet. On paper, they’ve only been in existence at that particular location for a little over a year.”
I suck in a breath. Too sharp. Too sudden. My ribs send lacy pain wrapping around my core.
But the structure,” he continues, watching me carefully. “The protocols. The efficiency. It reads as practiced. Like they’ve been doing this a long time under other names.”
I nod again.
“I’d like to ask you a question,” he says. “You don’t have to answer. No matter what, I’m here with you for as long as you want me to be.”
There’s no deception in his voice. His shoulders don’t tense, his eyes don’t tighten, his hands stay relaxed, folded.
“Ask.”
“Why did they take you?”
I press my chapped lips together. The sensation is wrong. It skitters along my spine, and settles in my fingers, where the tremor starts up again.
“Raine? I want to know you. Who would be so afraid of you that they’d send you to be erased? And…at the risk of sounding indelicate, why erase you instead of killing you?”
I drag my thumb across the side of my index finger, looking for something that isn’t there. The ghost of a tether I’ll never have again.
Tell him.
The urge to shut down—to disappear like they wanted me to—flares bright and hot. But they don’t get to write my story. I do.
“I work—worked—for the Global Security Directorate. Fifteen years in the field, then eleven months as a Systems Analyst.”
Asher’s reaction is so small, I almost miss it. A subtle darkening of his eyes. His mouth flattens for half a second. “The GSD doesn’t have a high tolerance for risk.”
“I became one.” My voice cracks, and I stare down at my hands.
At the bruises, the dry, cracked skin, the slight tremble in my fingers.
“Because I spotted a pattern—a single contractor attached to forty-three separate ops. That…doesn’t happen.
Or shouldn’t.” The tremor gets worse. “I thought…maybe it was a logging error. Or a glitch.” I press my thumb into my palm until I can feel my heartbeat.
“I started pulling the after-action reports. Just to check. On a handful of them—six, I think—one of the assigned field agents disappeared from the personnel rosters shortly after. They hadn’t retired or transferred. They were just…gone.”
Asher doesn’t interrupt.
“In every one of their files,” I continue, my voice thinner now, “there was a code I’d never seen before. RJ-3.”
I stare down at the bruises circling my wrists. Taste the blood from biting the inside of my cheek over and over again under the hood.
“That code doesn’t exist in any system I have—had—access to.
” My pulse starts to skitter again, the uneven rhythm leaving me off balance.
“Tessa, one of the junior analysts, found a file in her queue that didn’t belong there.
It had that same code attached to a handful of medical reviews.
She…” I stifle a sob. “I think she might have been sent there too. The black site. What if—what if she’s still there? ”
Asher’s fingers flex against the table. “When I found you, there were two other detainees with active records. One was scheduled for release that day. The other was also trending…positively. If Tessa was sent through Coherent Path, she survived.”
The relief is so sharp, I don’t know what to do with it.
Tracing one of the deeper lines in the wood with my index finger, I force my breathing back under control.
“When they took me, I didn’t know what I’d done wrong.
But I do now.” My throat burns with each word.
“I think what happened to me…the missing agents…”
I tug at the neck of the sweatshirt. I can still feel the ties knotted around my throat. The room is too small. Too dark. Too quiet. Even with the music playing and the lights on and Asher next to me.
“Someone at GSD knew if they let me get a handle on the pattern, I’d figure out where it led.”
The words hang in the air between us, and I raise my eyes.