Chapter Fifty-Six
Raine
Everything is too loud. My body remembers all the hands causing me pain.
The market smells like fish and sugar and rain and bodies. I’m not steady, the world tilting, like I’m on a ship in the middle of a storm.
Asher still has his arm around my waist—supporting me. He always seems to know exactly what to do—what I need. How to comfort without caging me in. His muscles are coiled tight enough to snap, and something in him has gone dangerously still.
I focus on Claire’s face. On her pained expression. Her lips are pressed into a thin line, and she’s shaking.
“We don’t have time to start from the ‘beginning.’” I reach into my pocket and run my thumb over Asher’s challenge coin. The raised lines in the center give me something to focus on. “GSD is actively trying to track me down, Claire. If they find me, they’ll finish what they started.”
Confusion pinches her brows. At my side, Asher vibrates with anger. “They’ll kill her.”
Claire recoils like Asher slapped her in the face. “That’s not—no. You expect me to believe they’d execute you because you saw the wrong file?”
I hold her gaze. “They already tried. Strapped me down, stuck electrodes to my temples, and ran so much current through me, I couldn’t feel my own body anymore.”
She flinches, but I’m not done.
“Does that make you uncomfortable? Imagine what it felt like for me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t think. And the man who flipped the switch probably signed out and went home for a nice dinner.”
Asher’s fingers tighten at my waist. The rest of him is deathly still.
“This has been going on for at least six years. Probably a lot longer. Most of the agents I found who’d disappeared from the system? They were women. Someone believes we’re easier to control—and easier to erase.”
Claire shakes her head once, like that simple movement can rid her mind of the image I put there. “That’s a serious accusation. One you can’t take back.”
“Yes. It is. Which is why I need proof. The only place I can get it is from inside GSD. Since I can’t walk through the front door, I need someone who can.”
“Me?” She takes another step back.
“You’re the one person I know they won’t lean on.
Not yet, at least. Systems only has forty-seven people in the whole department.
Two of us disappearing at once? That’s suspicious enough.
A third? An Assistant Director? They won’t be able to explain that away.
Even if helping me puts an escalation flag in your file, I’ll have what I need to go public before they can act on it. ”
Claire chews on her bottom lip hard enough it turns white. “I can meet you after work. At six.”
“No. Right now, or not at all,” I demand.
“Why?” Her brows shoot up, a hint of shock in her voice. “I’m due back at the office soon…”
“I can’t risk you changing your mind. Or sending a field team to meet us in your place. That would be the end of me. Of us.” I angle my head toward Asher.
“You think I’d turn you in?” Her voice fractures, suddenly smaller.
I hold her gaze for a long moment. “I think you might not have a choice.”
That hits hard. She nods slowly, her shoulders dropping. “Okay. But…I don’t have my laptop with me.”
“The library is only a few blocks away,” Asher offers. “Good sight lines and plenty of exits.” He glances down at me, brows lifted. “Does GSD allow external connections to the directories you need?”
I nod. “They should. I’m not touching active ops. Personnel files and approval chains only.”
Asher drops his hand from my waist and steps closer to Claire. “I need all your devices. Phone, smart watch, tablet…anything you have on you.”
Claire stiffens. “Excuse me?”
“Non-negotiable.” There’s nothing soft in his tone. No apology. “Anything with a signal could lead GSD right to us.”
I see the exact moment his words register. Is this when we lose her? She could walk away. Duck out onto First Avenue and flag down a police officer. Pull out her tablet and message the Security service with our location.
With a slow nod, Claire sets her bag down in front of Asher. “My tablet is in the side pocket.” She unbuckles her watch and passes it to me.
Asher withdraws the tablet, her phone, and a set of wireless earbuds. “This everything?”
“Y-yes.”
With brutal efficiency, Asher disables the devices one by one, then places everything into Claire’s purse before pushing to his feet. “Arms out.”
Claire flushes. “Is that really—”
“I’m afraid it is.” He’s quick, but thorough. His hands never linger, never grope, and in under a minute, he steps back. “All right. Claire, you first. We’re going through Post Alley to Pike, right on First, then left on Seneca.”
The hat feels like it’s suffocating me. The sunglasses mute the loudest of the colors, but within minutes, I’m barely holding onto a shred of rational thought.
I used to enjoy running out for a coffee, or even joining Claire for lunch on a cloudy day—one where the tourists weren’t out in droves. But now, it’s all too much.
By the time we pass Second, my legs are shaking. My ribs protest every deep breath. The last two blocks stretch skyward, the hill so much steeper than I remember. I keep my steps even through sheer force of will, but my strength is fading faster than it should.
Asher glances over at me, then lets his gaze sweep from one side of the street to the other. “Still with me?”
I don’t have enough in me for more than a nod.
When we cross Third, he lowers his voice. “Raine, can I…?”
My eyes burn behind the sunglasses. “Yes.”
His arm settles around my waist, taking enough of my weight that after a few minutes, I don’t have to negotiate with my ribs for permission to breathe.
His presence alone makes the hill feel shorter.
My body understands what my brain is only starting to catch up to. This is safe. Asher is safe. Always.
The library’s glass and steel walls rise up like some sort of futuristic monolith to science and technology. Claire stops short two steps from the door. “If you’re wrong—”
When she turns to me, whatever else she was going to say dies in her throat. “God, Raine. You should be in Belize or Iceland or Costa Rica with”—she waves her hand at Asher—“whoever Mr. Give-Me-All-Your-Devices is.”
“I escaped. But the next woman? She won’t have a Mr. Give-Me-All-Your-Devices. They’ll strip her down until she’s nothing. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll hollow her out and let her die, all while calling it care.”
I don’t have the strength to argue any more, so I push through the door and hope Claire decides to follow.
The library is warm. Quiet. The traffic noise fades to a low industrial hum too similar to the ventilation from the black site. My body braces all at once, and I almost stumble when my next step isn’t hobbled by the restraints and the heavy chain.
Claire stays close while Asher stops by the circulation desk to ask where the quietest computer terminals are.
“Second floor.” He gestures to the mezzanine where a glass wall surrounds the stacks, the chairs arranged in small groups, and several long tables filled with computers stretching half the length of the building. “The elevators are in the back.”
I don’t like the small, dimly lit space, but my legs are too wrecked for the stairs.
We find an open computer at the end of a long table. Asher sits at an angle that lets him see the entirety of the first floor—including the entrance—while I reach for the mouse. “Library card?” I ask Claire.
She pulls the small plastic rectangle from her wallet and drags it through the reader. “GSD won’t let me log in without my phone.”
I nudge her purse closer. “Power it on and hook it up to WiFi. No cellular service. Set it on the table where we can both see it.”
She doesn’t argue. Whatever fight she had is gone.
The employee login is nothing more than a hidden set of pixels on the public GSD website. Claire enters her credentials, and a moment later, her phone buzzes on the table.
I pick it up, angle it at Claire’s face, and type in the six-digit code it shows me.
The screen refreshes, and the dashboard I used for eleven months and six days comes up like I never left.