Chapter Fifty-Eight
Asher
Raine falls asleep before we reach the freeway. She doesn’t drift off slowly. One minute she’s white knuckling the edge of the center console at a stoplight, and the next, her head is tipped against the window.
I can’t see her eyes with the sunglasses perched on her nose, but before the light turns green, I note the steady rise and fall of her chest, and the lack of tension in her pale fingers.
She held it together until we reached the car. Barely. I half carried her down Fifth to University as her body started to fail.
She shifts in her sleep and makes a small sound that doesn’t belong in the light of day.
Fuck.
I reach over to rest my hand next to hers on the console. Not touching. Just close enough she can feel the heat of me. It seems to help. Her shoulders loosen, and she sighs.
We reach the bridge, and I curse under my breath. I never turned on the radio. Startling her is the last thing I want to do, but if she wakes to silence, that would be worse.
I keep the volume low, and thank fuck she doesn’t stir as I accelerate onto I-90. It’s early enough, the worst of rush hour hasn’t quite hit yet, but it’s still after four by the time I pull into the parking garage.
“Raine.”
She jerks up with a whimper, like someone set off a grenade under her seat.
“You’re okay. You’re not back there.”
Her eyes are glassy, bloodshot, and not quite focused. “Where—?”
“We’re in the garage—at the safe house. No one followed us. Once we’re in the elevator, you can take off that damn hat.”
Her mind isn’t quite back yet. I can see it in the lag between my words and the tension in her shoulders easing. “Oh. Okay.”
“Stay right there. I’m coming around to get you.”
By the time I open her door, she’s struggling with the belt, her fingers not quite steady enough to work the button. “I’ve got it.”
She doesn’t argue, which might be the scariest thing that’s happened all day.
I brace a hand under her elbow to help her up. But the moment her feet hit the concrete, she sways and practically collapses into my arms. Irritation creases her brow, followed by confusion.
“I’m fine,” she says. I don’t argue. Parts of her are fine. The rest…
Everything she’s done—from that first shower to picking out clothes to choosing…me—has finally caught up with her.
The fluorescent lights in the elevator are too loud in the silence, so I take out my phone and start up the app we’ve been using for background music. Almost immediately, the tension in her body starts to ease.
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” she murmurs once we’re inside the apartment.
“You didn’t.” Gently, I ease the hat from her head. Her hair is damp at the temples. “You crashed. Hard.”
A faint frown crosses her lips. “But I’m not tired.”
“I know.” I take her hand without asking, then kick myself as she flinches—just briefly—before letting me guide her to the couch.
“I was fine. Until I wasn’t.” Her voice is softer now. Uncertain. “I should be able to trust my own body…”
I sink down close enough she can touch me if she wants to, and rest my elbows on my knees. “You walked through Pike Place at the busiest time of day. You confronted Claire. You convinced her to help you. Then you climbed one of the steepest hills in Seattle. That’s not nothing.”
The tremor is back in her fingers. “I feel…gone,” she whispers.
Fuck me.
“You’re not gone. Your nervous system is releasing all the shit it’s been holding onto for the past two weeks.”
She stares at me like I’ve just handed her a math problem she doesn’t know how to solve.
“This isn’t a failure.” I take her hand between both of mine, rubbing lightly to take some of the chill from her fingers. “You held yourself together until it was safe enough to let go. That’s not weakness. That’s strength choosing when to recover.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.” With a single shudder, she sinks deeper into the cushions.
“It’s not supposed to. For people like us, it always feels ugly and unsteady and wrong. But this is how we heal. How we last.”
Her throat works like she wants to argue, but then she stares down at her hands. The tremor eases, and she curls her fingers against mine.
“I’m going to make you some tea, then start dinner. Food will help.” I bring our joined hands to my lips and brush a kiss to her knuckles.
Her eyes drift shut, and she sighs. “Okay.”
In the kitchen, I start cooking because it’s all I can do at the moment. She’s too wrecked to go through the files, and I’m not sure what to look for.
Garlic, butter, oregano, cream. Pasta with the barest hint of crushed red pepper, because Raine deserves flavor with her fuel.
Halfway through cooking, she sits up with a little wince and eases the laptop onto her thighs. The exhaustion is still there, but the glassy, vacant stare is gone. She let herself relax longer than I expected—but less than I’d hoped.
She plugs in the thumb drive, opens one of the files, and starts reading. Her focus isn’t sharp. But it’s not gone either.
By the time I’ve ladled two servings of chicken fettuccine alfredo into bowls, the whole apartment smelling like comfort in the form of cheese and cream, her cheeks have more color. Raine glances up at me when I set her bowl on the coffee table. “I’m not hungry.”
Her stomach chooses that exact second to call her out for not being able to read her body’s signals.
“Fine. I didn’t know I was hungry,” she huffs.
“You were focused. It happens.” I take a seat next to her, giving her enough space to curl up with her bowl without feeling crowded.
“I can only get the shape of it,” she says, twirling her fork through the steaming pasta. “The details are…noisy.”
“Do you want to talk through the edges? Or should we pretend we’re two people whose hobbies don’t include dismantling institutional evil?”
Raine almost chokes on her bite of pasta, but her laugh is the best sound I’ve heard all day. “I can’t decide what’s more concerning. That you think of this as a hobby, or that you make it sound so…normal.”
“I suppose it’s more of a very niche skill set,” I say, keeping my tone light. “But we won’t know until after we take down GSD and decide where life leads us next.”
Her fork wobbles for a moment, her gaze pinned to her bowl. “You say that like there’s an after. One with me in it.”
“There is.” I set my bowl down, then shift closer. “The minute you said ‘follow my lead,’ I was in, Raine. I didn’t understand why at the time, but I do now. You don’t run from a fight. You stay so no one else gets hurt. I know what that kind of courage costs. And exactly what it’s worth.”
Her cheeks flush bright red. But as she eats, she summarizes what she saw in GSD’s files.
“Ellen was right,” she says. “It didn’t start out as Coherent Path. Eleven years ago, it was the Operational Standards Intensive. They made it sound like a week at a spa. And…it was optional.”
“But it didn’t stay that way. When did it change?”
“Six years ago. Right before Ellen retired. That’s when it became Coherent Path.
There…was a memo.” Her voice drops to a whisper.
“Dr. Julian Voss. He’s the one who created Coherent Path.
The language in it…‘controlled isolation’ and making sure ‘independent judgment’ didn’t interfere with ‘operational objectives.’” She stares at her hands curled around the bowl.
“He’s a doctor. Probably psychology, but I’ll have to look up the letters after his name. ”
“You got all the employee files?” I ask, nudging the bowl a little closer to her. She’s barely eaten, and she needs the fuel to get through this crash.
She nods, the motion lagging like she’s moving through quicksand. “Every one that was tied to the approval code I found in the archive. But there are so many. I need to know which ones didn’t come back to GSD—who retired, who just…disappeared…”
“I can help with that. You’d need to show me what to look for, but…”
A hint of light returns to her eyes. “Yes. I’m so wiped. I should have thought of that.”
“What else do you need to go public?” I ask.
Raine draws in a slow, measured breath. “All of the logs from Coherent Path. Not just the thirty days you stole. Everything. And the Procedure Index. It’s the only way I’ll be able to interpret what they did…
to me. Without that, all I have are broken fragments of memory that can be written off as delusional.
But if we try to get into the facility…we won’t come back out again. ”
We sit in silence for several minutes, Raine pushing her pasta around the bowl rather than eating.
A fine tremor shakes her fingers, and her gaze isn’t tracking.
She’s somewhere dark and dangerous, somewhere that isn’t here.
I fight the urge to drag her back—to drag her to me—because I could do more harm than good.
If I’d been any later—if my target had stayed in Northbridge—fuck.
Northbridge.
“We don’t need to get inside the black site.” I keep my voice soft, hoping it’s enough to pull her back to the present, and set my bowl on the coffee table.
Raine blinks slowly, gives the smallest shake of her head, and focuses on me. “What?”
“My client? The one who sent me to Northbridge in the first place? He said he had a contact inside. That’s how he knew the target was there.”
Her spine straightens, and suddenly she’s fully present again. Calculating angles, running through all the different ways this could go wrong—or right. “Coherent Path isn’t going to let some random Northbridge employee into their computer system.”
“They let me in.” I offer her one of my most convincing stares. The one I’ve perfected over a decade of bluffing my way into places I had no business accessing. “Confidence does most of the work. Badges are merely decoration.”
A faint smile curves her lips. “You have an alarming amount of faith in the laziness of humanity.”
“I do. Because I’ve already seen it in action. No one raised a brow when I walked you out of there. My shirt was the wrong color, my shoes probably cost twice anyone’s monthly salary, and my cologne didn’t smell like fear and hopelessness.”
Raine’s eyes soften. “Your voice was wrong,” she says. “That was the first thing I noticed. But after that...I remember thinking you smelled too good to be one of them. Send the message. It’s worth a try.”
The dishes cleared and a cup of tea for her in my hand, I return to the couch. The glow of the laptop screen highlights the dark circles under her eyes.
“How much are you likely to get out of those files tonight?” I ask, keeping my voice gentle. I won’t stop her from working. I won’t stop her from doing anything. Not after what they did to her. But she’s wearing herself too thin.
With a sigh, she closes the lid and slides the computer onto the table. “Nothing. My thoughts won’t settle. I’ve tried, but…”
“You’re exhausted. So am I, if I’m honest, and this was a light day in my world.” I pick up the remote and find a channel with nothing but Law & Order reruns. “Can I hold you?”
She curls against me without hesitation, and I wrap my arm around her shoulders, careful not to put too much pressure on the still healing bruises. The tension in her muscles starts to ease. By the time the two detectives on screen discover their first body, she’s practically boneless in my arms.
Her mind is still working, though. Every few scenes, she surfaces with a thought or a question. But mostly, we pretend we’re the kind of people who take care of their house plants and have strong opinions on which Law & Order spinoff reigns supreme.
When we finally get ready for bed, Raine’s every movement is careful and controlled, effort conserved not spent. She picks up her book, but sets it back down after a single page.
“I can’t follow it,” she whispers.
“You don’t have to.” Cupping the back of her neck, I kiss her gently, and she responds with a softness that has nothing to do with urgency and everything to do with trust.
Raine isn’t mine. She’d hate that phrase. Along with everything running through my mind right now, if I’m honest. But while she might not be my entire world, she’s most definitely the center of it.
And when she curls on her side, her hand settling against my chest like it belongs there—like it’s always belonged there—I realize I’m dangerously close to falling in love with her.
Her breathing evens out, and the last of the tension drains away. Only then do I reach for my phone.
Need to talk to your Northbridge contact. I know what I’m asking for. Whatever the cost is, I’ll pay it.
I don’t even know if the number he used to hire me is still active. But if it is, he’s our best shot. And if not…Inara and her team might have to get their hands dirty.