Chapter 4 Asher #2
How do you explain six years of obsession? Six years of wondering why a weapon chose mercy? Six years of seeing his face every time you closed your eyes and not knowing if it was nightmare or fantasy?
"He saw me," I say finally. "In that pit, when I was bleeding out and ready to die, he looked at me and saw a person. Not an opponent. Not a target. Me." I pick up the rifle again, run the cloth along the barrel. "Nobody had ever done that before. Nobody's done it since. Until I came here."
"And you think that means something."
"I know it means something. I just don't know what yet."
Marlee is quiet. She walks to the barn window, looks out at the farmhouse, at the figures moving behind the windows.
"The Silent made him," she says without turning around. "Same way the pits made us. You know what that means. You know the things they do to kids to turn them into weapons. The conditioning, the breaking, the rebuilding. Whatever's human inside him got beaten out a long time ago."
"You're wrong."
"Am I?"
"He walked away from me in that pit. He took the punishment instead of killing me. That's not a machine. That's a man fighting against what they made him."
She turns, studies my face. "And you want to be the one who saves him."
"I don't want to save him. He doesn't need saving.
" I set down the rifle and look at her. "I want to give him a choice.
His whole life, people have made choices for him.
What to be, who to kill, how to feel. I'm not going to be another person who takes that away.
If he wants this, he has to choose it. If he doesn't, I'll walk away. "
"Will you? Walk away?"
"If I have to."
"Somehow I don’t believe that."
Yeah. Me neither.
Marlee stands, brushes hay off her pants. "Fine. You want to chase a man who's more likely to gut you than kiss you, that's your business. But if he hurts you, really hurts you, I'm putting him down. History be damned."
"Noted."
"I mean it, Asher. I've buried too many friends. I'm not burying you because you fell for a man who doesn't know the difference between violence and love."
"He knows the difference." I stand and pull her into a brief, rough hug. She stiffens, then relaxes into it. We're not huggers, either of us, but sometimes you need the contact. "He's just scared of both."
"That doesn't make it better."
"No. But it makes it human." I release her and step back. "Thanks for caring."
"Someone has to. You clearly don't have the sense to care about yourself."
She leaves, and I'm alone with my weapons and my thoughts.
She's right. I probably am walking into a fire. Jinx is dangerous in every way that matters, and whatever's happening between us is as likely to end in blood as it is in tenderness.
But I've spent my whole life surviving. Fighting. Enduring.
Maybe it's time to try living instead.
We load the vans at eleven.
Weapons, gear, medical supplies. Everything we might need for a mission that could go right or go very, very wrong. Kira and Dom take the first van, heading to the rally point early to set up extraction. The rest of us pile into the second.
It's cramped. Jagger in the front with Jonah, running comms. Jace and Marlee in the middle, checking weapons one last time. Thiago wedged into a corner, somehow managing to sleep despite the tension.
And me and Jinx in the back.
We haven't spoken since the briefing. Since my stupid joke that made everyone uncomfortable and made him look at me with murder in his eyes. He's been avoiding me all day, which is fair, but now we're stuck in a metal box together for the next three hours.
The van pulls out. The farmhouse disappears behind us. Ahead, Geneva and a bunch of murder children who need saving.
Jinx is pressed against the opposite wall, arms crossed, staring at nothing. His jaw is tight. His shoulders are rigid. Every line of his body screams stay away.
I've never been good at following instructions.
I shift closer, our shoulders almost touching. He tenses but doesn't move.
"You're still mad about the joke," I say quietly.
"I'm not mad."
"You've been avoiding me all day."
"I've been busy."
"Bullshit."
He finally looks at me. In the dim light of the van, his eyes are dark pools, unreadable. But his voice, when he speaks, is low enough that no one else can hear.
"You embarrassed me. In front of my brothers, in front of your people, in front of everyone."
"I know."
"That's all you have to say? 'I know'?"
"I'm not sorry." I hold his gaze. "You spent all morning pretending last night didn't happen. Wouldn't look at me, wouldn't talk to me, acted like I was a stranger. I don't play those games, Jinx. You want to pretend? Fine. But I'm not pretending with you."
"I told you. It changes nothing."
"And I told you that's bullshit." I lean closer, my mouth near his ear. "You can lie to yourself all you want. But your body doesn't lie. And last night, your body said plenty."
His breath catches. His hand twitches toward me, then stops.
"We have a mission," he says.
"We do."
"I need to focus."
"So focus." I settle back against the seat, giving him space. "I'll be here when you're ready to stop running."
He doesn't respond. Just turns back to stare at the window, jaw working, hands clenched.
But he doesn't move away. Our shoulders stay pressed together, heat bleeding through fabric, for the rest of the drive.
Somewhere around the two-hour mark, his hand finds mine in the darkness between our seats. His fingers thread through mine, rough and calloused, gripping tight.
He doesn't look at me. Doesn't acknowledge what he's doing. Just holds on like I'm the only solid thing in a world that keeps shifting underneath him.
I hold on right back.
Marlee catches my eye from across the van. She sees our joined hands, hidden in the shadows but not hidden enough. Her expression is complicated, worry and resignation and maybe, just maybe, a smidge of hope.
I give her a small nod. I'm okay. This is okay.
She shakes her head and looks away.
Outside, the French countryside blurs past. Ahead, Geneva and a facility full of children who need saving. Behind, a farmhouse where something changed between us that neither of us knows what to do with.
Jinx's thumb strokes across my knuckles. Once. Twice. A tiny gesture, almost unconscious.
It's not much.
But it's something.
And right now, that is enough.