Chapter Thirty-Five
Raine
My eyes keep drifting to the bottom corner of the laptop screen. Forty-five minutes since Asher left.
He’ll have the tech gear by now. But groceries…
He’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.
I take another sip of tea and focus back on the logs. Four files end in disposal.
Mine.
The man Asher was sent to extract.
And two others. All in the last thirty days.
I map the escalation paths side by side. Two contractor IDs appear in all four. One always shows up near the beginning, right after intake—C-23. The other—C-96—only appears at the end.
Patterns begin to align in my head. They’re not clean. So many of the codes don’t mean anything to me. Until I find a tight cluster across three of the files.
My vision blurs.
A voice I don’t want to remember surfaces anyway.
“This is a correction.”
Fingers dig into the nerve bundle at the base of my neck. A sharp, electric jolt radiates down my spine. I choke back a cry.
I hadn’t even known what I’d done wrong.
I swallow, prepared to feel the hood ties at my throat. But there’s nothing. The music shifts, and it’s enough to pull me back to the present.
I label the codes as a correction and move on.
Other codes bring up sensations I can’t name—and don’t want to. Not alone. Not without Asher nearby.
I’m about to make another cup of tea when the phone rings. I memorized Asher’s number yesterday when he left to pick up my clothes, and this isn’t it.
Inara.
I swipe my finger across the screen but don’t say anything. Just in case.
“Raine? Are you there?” Inara asks, caution in her tone.
“Yes. Did you find something?” My heartbeat ticks up a dozen notches.
“Someone ran your passport number through a federal identity verification system. Probably trying to see if it’s been used recently.”
Cold prickles across my skin.
“Or if you’ve requested a replacement,” she continues. “Whoever’s looking isn’t playing around.”
My throat works around nothing. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Two failed internal access attempts on your primary bank account. Not fraud. More like informal probes—someone testing how locked down you are.”
I press my hand flat to the table.
“And the SIM thing you warned me about,” she says. “Your old number was caught in a registration sweep. Could be automated. Could be someone manually checking whether you activated a new device.”
My jaw tightens. It doesn’t matter that I was expecting this. It matters that they’re expanding the search so quickly. “Not…entirely surprising. If anything else surfaces, please let me know.”
There’s a pause on the line. “One more thing,” Inara says. “The program I’m using to monitor…it flagged an anomaly with the passport query. The same IP address ran two checks within a minute of each other, then nothing else. Does the name Mason Locke mean anything to you?”
The world tilts.
“I—” Icy cold races up the back of my neck. “I have to go. I’ll call you back.”
The quiet rushes in. No. Not quiet. Silence.
The music stopped when I answered the call. I reach for the app, but my fingers won’t cooperate. They buzz, then prickle. Pins and needles crawl up my hands. My wrists throb. Pressure. Too tight. Too long. My nerves light up like they remember.
The heater clicks on. Sharp. Sudden. Too loud.
I jerk and the chair skids back with a shriek of wood on tile. My heart slams hard enough to hollow me out. They’ll come now. Hands on me. Pain. Because I made noise. Because I’m not where I’m supposed to be.
I stagger to the corner. My back hits the wall. Pain shoots down my spine, and my legs fold before I can stop them.
The air won’t go where it’s supposed to, my breaths scraping out of my lungs in shallow, jagged gasps. My hands shake so badly I press them against my thighs, but the tremor won’t stop.
I don’t know how long it’s been. Time has gone soft around the edges. My legs are folded under me, useless. Every breath stalls halfway in.
The phone rings.
Asher.
I manage to swipe one numb finger across the screen.
“Hey,” Asher says, distracted. I hear movement behind him. A cart wheel. The low murmur of voices. Groceries. Shopping. “I’m at the canned fruit. Quick question. Do you want the pears packed in water or syrup?”
I try to answer.
Nothing comes out.
I reset. My mouth opens. A thin, torn sound scrapes free. “N-need…”
It barely qualifies as a word.
There’s a pause. His breathing changes. Sharpens. “I’m coming back. Right now.”
I can’t get enough air. My fingers curl against the floor, nails catching on the wood.
“Stay with me,” he says. I hear footsteps, quicker now. “You don’t need to talk. Just breathe for me.”
My vision swims. The room tilts sideways.
“I’m leaving the store. Nine minutes out. Maybe eight.” His voice is so steady. So certain. Like nothing ever truly rattles him.
I want to answer. But I can’t manage more than a broken whimper.
My grip fails. The phone slips from my hand and clatters to the floor, the sound too loud in the silent room.
He keeps talking, but the words are far away now. Or maybe I’m far away. I don’t know anymore.
Asher
The second I hear her try to answer—and fail—I understand what’s happening. The safe house systems didn’t alert me to anything. She’s physically safe. That’s the only thought that keeps me from detonating. But her mind…
I abandon the basket and rush down the aisle. By the time I hit the sidewalk, I’m running.
The dark glasses, scarf, and hat are suffocating, but I keep them on. If anyone’s looking for me, facial recognition won’t track me like this.
Eight minutes turn into six and a half. The elevator is too slow, so I take the stairs up four flights. The electronic lock beeps as I type in the combination.
Fuck. Fuck.
Raine is huddled in the corner. Knees drawn up. Her hands are shaking so hard the phone never had a chance. It lies where it fell, the call still open, but the screen dark.
The room is utterly silent except for her tiny gasps as she struggles for air. No music. No TV.
She doesn’t look up when I enter.
She doesn’t react to the sound of the door.
That tells me everything.
I strip off the hat, sunglasses, and scarf, letting them fall as I crouch several feet away.
“Raine. It’s me. It’s Asher.”
Her head jerks slightly. Not away. Not toward. Just enough to tell me she heard something.
Okay. She’s here. Sort of.
Her eyes are open, but they’re unfocused, tracking nothing. Her chest stutters, breath skidding in and out too quickly. If I don’t interrupt this cycle, she’ll lose consciousness.
Pulling out my phone, I end the call and launch the playlist she’d picked this morning. After the first few notes, her breathing changes pattern.
“That’s your music, Raine. The one you said you liked the most. You picked it. Remember?”
Her shoulders drop slightly. The tremor in her hands eases a fraction.
I slow my own breathing and let it be audible without exaggerating it.
She tries to follow and fails. Tries again.
Her arms loosen slightly around her legs.
The music keeps playing. Steady. Ordinary. Familiar in a way that doesn’t demand anything from her.
She squeezes her eyes shut. “I—” Her voice cracks. “I can’t—”
“I know,” I say. “You were hyperventilating. It messes with everything. Give it another minute.”
The music shifts, and Raine blinks. For the first time since I came back to the apartment, I think she can finally see me.
“Asher?” Her voice is thin. Raw with pain.
“I’m right here.”
“Can you—” She swallows hard, then tries again. “Can you touch me?”
“Yes. Where? How?”
She looks down at her fingers. They’re still shaking. “I need…your hand.”
I slide closer—slowly—until I’m right next to her, then lay my hand, palm up, on my knee.
She doesn’t move. One second. Two. Three. And then she places her hand in mine.
The change is immediate. Her shoulders sag. Her entire body shudders, the tension bleeding out of her as she squeezes my fingers.
I don’t tighten my grip. I let her lead. “There you are,” I say softly.
She nods. Exhaustion crashes through her all at once. Her head dips forward, chin nearly hitting her chest.
“I’m so tired,” she whispers.
“I know. Let’s get you off the floor.”
I shift and help her up slowly, keeping our hands linked, guiding her to the couch. Her legs aren’t steady. She doesn’t sit so much as collapse into the cushions.
“Better?” I ask.
“A little. I’m…really cold.” Her eyes meet mine. God, the fear in them breaks me open. “I want more contact.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Adjust however you need.”
She pins her gaze to our joined hands where her fingers still twitch uncontrollably, though the tremors are starting to settle. An inch at a time, she shifts closer.
“Your arm. Back of the couch. I want…your other hand.”
I don’t hesitate. The motion tugs on the old shoulder injury, but I don’t care. I’d leave my arm there for the rest of the day if she asked.
Carefully, she leans into my side. Her breathing evens out. Not all at once, but in stages. The shaking eases, and she lets her head tip against my shoulder.
“The cold is just the adrenaline fading. It’ll stop in a few minutes.”
“Know I’m not back…there,” she murmurs. “Body hasn’t caught up yet.”
The music plays on. Raine closes her eyes. I don’t move. Don’t wrap my arm around her. Don’t tighten my fingers on hers. My job isn’t to save her. It’s to steady her while she’s saving herself.
Time stretches on. Minutes. Maybe half an hour. She’s not asleep. Not deeply, anyway. Just under enough for her body to reset. To find its balance again.
My left arm has gone numb. This is going to hurt like a son of a bitch when I eventually move.
It’s worth the pain. She’s worth the pain.
Raine stirs, one last shudder working its way through her body. “I’m…steady,” she murmurs. “Here.”
“Good. I’m not going anywhere. Not unless you tell me to.”
Her fingers tighten on mine. Just once. “They’re looking for Mason Locke. That’s what…triggered me. Inara asked about the name, and I started to spiral. I couldn’t get the music back on. And everything…fell apart. I wasn’t ready for them to come after you.”
Fuck.
“We knew it would happen.” I keep my voice steady, but I’m already working through the steps I need to take to burn that alias to the ground.
“We did. But it’s too soon.” She shifts enough to look at me, but not enough to break contact. “I don’t have enough to go public yet. If I’m—if we’re—going to stop them, I have to understand the system. All of it.”
The urge to get her a new identity and whisk her out of the country hits hard enough I brace for a beat. But this is her op to run. “Tell me what you need. Where you want me. How I can help. I’m in this with you, Raine. Till the end.”