Chapter Forty-Eight
Asher
I stand outside the door for an extra beat before my hand is steady enough to punch in the unlock code.
Raine knows we can’t stay here forever. And moving is a hell of a lot better than what GSD will do to us if they find us.
Raine looks up as I step inside, then checks the clock on the laptop. “You’re early.”
“Normally, I linger in produce like it’s a hobby. Today, I just wanted to get back to you.”
Twin spots of color rise on her cheeks. “Oh.”
Her voice is a little off at the edges, but she’s steady. Smiling, even. And next to the laptop, a plate holds half a slice of pound cake—and plenty of crumbs. Good. Her appetite is coming back, and she’s letting herself want something beyond broth and tea.
The fedora and scarf go on the coat rack, aviators in my jacket pocket. “Give me a minute?”
She’s distracted, flipping back a couple of pages in her notebook, and nods.
In the bedroom, I slip her new passport under the medical kit in my go bag. She doesn’t need to know it’s there. Not yet. Raine won’t run unless there’s no other choice. Planning for that eventuality? It’d distract her from burning the bastards who hurt her—along with so many others.
“Perishables?” she asks, pushing up from the table and eyeing the small backpack I brought up from the car.
“No. They’re in a cooler in the Chevy.” I hold out my hand, waiting for her to take it before I say another word. From the way her brows pinch together and her shoulders tense, she already knows what I’m about to tell her.
I keep the details of the ride back here short. No hypotheses, just the facts. “I have a contact who’s trying to get info on the camera install, and while he’s usually reliable, this is more than I usually ask of him.”
I lean against the counter, and Raine steps close enough to rest one hand over my heart. “You think we need to move now.”
“I think sleeping here tonight would be a risk I’m not willing to take. But you’d know better than I would. How fast does GSD move in this type of situation?”
“They’re cautious. Sometimes too cautious.” Her fingers curl against my chest. “Moving is the right call. Do you want to go now?”
“In an hour. Once it’s dark.”
Raine nods. “Okay. I need to walk you through what I found today. But I’ve been in that chair too long.” She nods at the couch. “Can we sit for a few minutes?”
Fuck me. Why does she suddenly sound so uncertain?
I offer her my hand, and while she takes it without hesitation, she doesn’t sit next to me. Instead, she angles herself against the arm so she’s facing me, opening the notebook and flipping through several pages. When she smooths the paper with her palm, it crinkles under her fingers.
Frowning, I scan the text. The notes she made this morning were tight lines of precise, clean script. This…the letters are uneven. Shaky in some places, too small or too large in others. Like her hand refused, briefly but repeatedly, to obey.
Her eyes close, and she draws in a slow, steady breath. I know what that means now. I learned to listen for it over three nights of sleeping in that godawful chair. Four counts in. Hold. Six counts out. Whatever she’s about to tell me, it’s bad.
“I found another file in the logs you stole. Another old one from years ago. An incident report.” Her eyes dart to mine for a beat, then back to the paper.
“The detainee was labeled ‘non-compliant.’ The escalation pattern was a lot like mine. After six days, they administered electroshock. Three sessions back to back. It…caused a cardiac event. Death.”
Something cold slides down my spine.
“It wasn’t an execution,” she continues.
Clinical now. That voice she uses when she’s handling something radioactive and refuses to flinch.
Her fingers tremble over one of the lines of text.
“Not an intentional one. But at the end, there was a summary. A new protocol for non-compliance. Three sessions. Each one stronger than the last. Until the detainee’s vitals destabilize enough that they can guarantee death will follow.
That the detainee will expire on their own. ”
Expire. On their own.
The walls press in on me. The only sounds in the room are the low hum of the music and my pulse in my ears.
I can’t even hear Raine’s breathing. I want to put my fist through the wall.
The floor. The ceiling. Through every fucking person who read that sentence and didn’t immediately put a stop to this.
Raine swallows. Her shoulders lift, then stall, catching halfway down. Her eyes lose me for a beat, focus drifting just past my left shoulder. The hand holding the notebook tightens until the page bows under her fingers.
I stay still. I don’t say her name. I don’t reach for her. Not yet.
Another measured breath. This one doesn’t make it the whole way. But the next one does. The tension eases slowly. As does her grip on the notebook. Her gaze finds mine, and thank fuck her eyes are clear.
My chest aches for her. For Ellen and Tessa and everyone Coherent Path has ever touched.
Raine clears her throat. “I…went back there. In my head. I thought it was just once. I thought…when you found me…that they knew they’d gone too far and couldn’t risk that I’d tell anyone how badly they’d hurt me. I was wrong.”
A single tear shimmers in her eye, and she swipes it away, a tiny tremor in her fingers.
“The protocol they described? That’s what they did to me.
Three times. Increasing amplitude. At the end…
one of them said, ‘Manual intervention requires a signature.’” Her hands flex in her lap.
Her thumb moves to her index finger, stops, and she dips her hand into her pocket and pulls out my father’s challenge coin.
“I think…they needed approval to force a cardiac event. And until they had it…they just…left me there, hoping I’d die. ”
Rage detonates behind my ribs. For a long moment, I can’t breathe.
I understand it all now. Why there were no cameras in that room. Why they’d left her without food or water for so long her blood pressure had bottomed out and her heart was racing.
My hands shake. I don’t try to hide it. “Raine.” My voice is wrecked, stripped raw by fury and fear and something sharp enough to cut me in two. “Can I—” The rest won’t come. Asking feels wrong.
She studies me, clocks the anger, the desperate need to ground myself in something. In her.
With a nod, she shifts closer, leaning against me, her breath ghosting over the curve of my neck. “Put your arms around me, Asher.”
I keep the pressure light. Low on her back. Holding her anchors us both to the same piece of solid ground.
But inside, I’m burning.
They tried to break her. And when that failed, they made a conscious decision to end her.
The voice in my head is calm. Lethal. Vicious.
They don’t get to do this to anyone ever again.
Raine stays in my arms for another few seconds, then lifts her head enough to look at me. The determination in her eyes reassures me. She’s not going to let them get away with this. And she’s already decided her next steps.
“Did you—? Were you able to check on Tessa?” she asks.
My jaw tightens. I ease back, waiting until she mirrors my position to continue.
“You were right about her monitoring. I saw her go into a building a little north of Green Lake. The sign said it was a dental office.” I shake my head softly.
“Whatever happened in there…it cost her something. She was shaken when she came out. Less than, somehow.”
Raine’s eyes shimmer. Sadness, then right behind it, anger.
“They’re seeing how far they can push her without leaving marks.
Because of me. They probably told her it was my fault.
What she’s going through now. So there’s one less person in this world who’ll trust me.
They’ll do that with everyone I’ve ever worked with if we don’t stop them. ”
She presses her index fingers hard against the notebook, and after a beat, straightens and glances at the window. “It’s almost dark.”
A hard knot tightens in my stomach. “Well, then let’s pack up the laptop and take off. If we leave now, I’ll still be able to make risotto for dinner.”