Chapter 2 Jonah #2
I don't jump. I don't. But I do spin around fast enough to slosh water on my hand, and he is standing in the doorway in a t-shirt and sweatpants, looking almost human for the first time since I met him.
Almost.
"Jesus Christ." I press my non-wet hand to my chest. "Do you just materialize out of shadows? Is that a skill they teach at Evil Overlord Academy?"
"I heard you moving around." He walks past me to the coffee maker, starts it up with the ease of long practice. "Nightmares?"
"Something like that." I lean against the counter, watching him.
Without the suit, he looks younger. Less like a dickhead and more like a person who maybe, once upon a time, had normal human experiences.
The t-shirt pulls across his shoulders, and I notice for the first time that he's built like someone who works out with purpose rather than vanity.
Functional muscle. The kind that comes from knowing how to hurt people.
Great. My captor is hot. That's definitely not going to complicate things.
"You?" I ask, pushing that thought aside.
"I don't sleep much."
"That tracks. Sleep requires letting your guard down. Can't imagine you're big on vulnerability." I gesture at the coffee maker. "Is that your secret? Just mainline caffeine until consciousness becomes optional?"
"Something like that."
"Wow, we're practically twins. Next you'll tell me you also cope with trauma through inappropriate humor and a complete inability to process emotions in a healthy way."
He glances at me. Just a flicker, but I catch it.
"Ah." I nod sagely. "So that's a no."
"The coffee is for me. If you want some, you can make your own."
"Generous. I can see why they made you head of hospitality." I take a swig of water. "So, how does this work? The memory testing thing. You going to hook me up to machines? Show me flashcards? Play word association until I remember all the terrible things you did to me?"
His hands still on the coffee mug. Just for a second.
"I'm going to ask you questions," he says. "Show you documents, photographs, names. We'll see what triggers recall and what doesn't."
"Sounds fun. Really looking forward to reliving my greatest hits." I hop up onto the counter, legs dangling, because I know it'll annoy him. Sure enough, his eye twitches. "What happens when I remember everything? All the stuff you worked so hard to erase?"
"Then we'll deal with that."
"'Deal with.' That's ominous. Is that your way of saying you'll kill me once I'm not useful anymore?"
He turns to face me, coffee in hand. His expression is unreadable, but his eyes... there's something there. Something that almost looks like conflict.
"I don't know what I'm going to do with you," he says. "That's the truth."
"Wow. Honesty. From the guy who literally built his career on lies and manipulation." I salute him with my water bottle. "I'm touched. Really. I might cry. Do you have tissues? They're probably organic, free-range tissues, knowing your aesthetic."
"Get off my counter."
"Make me, Daddy J." The words are out before I can stop them and I suck in a sharp breath. That was stupid as fuck. Exactly the kind of thing that gets people killed.
His eyes narrow. For a long moment, neither of us moves.
Oh fuck.
Then he sets down his coffee cup and walks toward me.
My heart rate spikes. I hold my ground, because backing down now would be worse than whatever's about to happen. He stops directly in front of me, close enough that I can smell the coffee on his breath, close enough that I'd have to crane my neck to meet his eyes.
"You think you're clever," he says quietly. "You think the jokes and the attitude will protect you. That if you're annoying enough, I'll get frustrated and make a mistake."
"Is it working?"
"No." He leans in, one hand bracing on the counter beside my hip. "I've interrogated people who made you look like an amateur. I've broken minds that were stronger than yours. Your little defense mechanism is transparent, predictable, and ultimately useless."
"And yet you brought me here." I don't look away. Don't give him the satisfaction. "Off the record. Hidden from your own people. If I'm so useless, why go to the trouble?"
Surprise colors his expression. There and gone, too fast to read.
"Get off my counter," he says again. "Please."
The 'please' throws me. It's not a word I expected from him.
I slide off the counter, putting a few feet of space between us. My heart is still pounding, but I keep my voice light.
"Since you asked so nicely."
He picks up his coffee and takes a long sip, watching me over the rim.
"Project Omega," he finally says. "You were investigating something called Project Omega when we took you. I need to know what you found."
My vision blurs, fragments of memory crashing through—a file folder, photographs of children, shipping manifests, a name I can almost grasp—
I grab the counter to steady myself. The kitchen tilts, then rights itself.
"Jonah."
I blink. Jagger is closer than he was, one hand hovering near my arm like he's not sure if he should touch me. There's something in his face that looks almost like concern, which is disorienting enough to pull me back to the present.
"I'm fine." I step back, putting distance between us. My hands are shaking. I shove them in my pockets so he can't see. "Just... that name. It triggered something."
"What did you see?"
"I don't know. People. Kids." I press the heel of my hand against my forehead, trying to hold onto the images as they slip away like water through fingers. " A facility somewhere cold. Snow outside windows. And there was a name, someone important, but I can't..."
I trail off, frustrated. It's like trying to grab smoke.
"A name," Jagger repeats. "What kind of name?"
"I don't know. Foreign, maybe? German? It's gone now." I laugh, and it sounds bitter even to me. "Three years of chemical erasure, and now my brain is leaking like a broken faucet. Very dignified."
He's watching me with that intensity again. Studying me. I can practically see the gears turning behind his eyes.
"The memories will continue to surface," he says. "The process has already started. It can't be reversed."
"Wonderful. Perhaps I’ll finally be able to remember my mother’s name.” I grab my water bottle, take a long drink. "So what happens when I remember everything? When I remember what you did to me?”
"We'll deal with that when it happens."
"You keep saying 'deal with.' That's very ominous and non-specific. Are we talking therapy? Murder? A strongly worded apology?"
"I don't apologize."
"Shocking. Truly shocking." I set the bottle down.
"Look, Harrison, I get it. You're the big bad wolf and I'm supposed to be terrified.
And I am, for the record. Terrified. But I've also been terrified for three years straight, and at some point, the fear just..
. runs out. You hit a baseline of constant dread and everything else becomes background noise. "
He's quiet for a moment. "You're not what I expected."
"What did you expect? A weeping mess? A broken shell? Sorry to disappoint."
"I expected someone who would cooperate out of self-preservation."
"Oh, I'm absolutely cooperating out of self-preservation. I'm just being annoying about it." I grin. "Multitasking."
Something flickers across his face. If I didn't know better, I'd call it amusement.
But I do know better. Men like Jagger Harrison don't get amused. They get strategic.
"We'll start there tomorrow," he says, redirecting. "Project Omega. See what else surfaces."
"Can’t wait, Daddy J. Can't wait to have my brain picked apart by the guy who scrambled it in the first place." I force a smile. "This is really a beautiful captor-captive relationship we're building. Very healthy. Very normal."
"Go back to bed, Jonah."
"Is that an order?"
"It's a suggestion. You look like hell."
"Charming. You really know how to make a guy feel special." I push off from the counter, heading for the door. "Thanks for the water. And the existential dread. Both very refreshing."
I'm almost out of the kitchen when his voice stops me.
"Jonah."
I turn. He's still standing there, coffee in hand, backlit by the dim glow of the appliances.
"What?"
"The humor. The constant deflection." His eyes meet mine. "I know what it is. I know you're using it to cope."
My throat tightens. "And?"
"And it's not going to work on me. I see through it. I see through everything."
"Good for you." My voice comes out harder than I intended.
"But here's the thing, dickwad. I spent years with nothing but my own broken brain for company.
The jokes are all I have left. So you can see through them all you want, but I'm not going to stop.
Because if I stop laughing, I start screaming.
And I don't think either of us wants that. "
He's quiet.
"Good talk," I say. "Really bonding. Same time tomorrow?"
I leave before he can respond.
Back in the bedroom, I lie on the expensive sheets and stare at the expensive ceiling and think about all the ways this could end badly.
Most of them involve me dead or broken. Again.
But here's the thing Jagger doesn't understand, the thing none of them understood when they strapped me to that table and poured chemicals into my brain…
I was a journalist. A good one. The kind who got death threats and kept digging anyway. The kind who slept with a recorder under his pillow and a go-bag by the door. The kind who learned early that the truth is worth more than safety, more than comfort, more than anything.
They kept me alive for three years because they thought they'd erased everything that made me dangerous.
They were wrong.
The memories are coming back. Piece by piece, fragment by fragment, the person I used to be is clawing his way out of the chemical fog they locked him in.
And the man who broke me is about to find out exactly how wrong they were.
I think about Jagger standing in his kitchen in his sweatpants, looking almost human. I think about the way his eye twitched when I sat on his counter. The way he said 'please' like it cost him something.
I think about the conflict in his eyes when I asked him what he was going to do with me.
He doesn't know.
That's interesting.
That's something I can work with.
The Silent designed him to be a weapon. Cold, precise, without weakness. But weapons don't bring assets home off the record. Weapons don't make coffee at 3 AM and have kitchen conversations with their prisoners. Weapons don't look at broken journalists with something that almost looks like guilt.
Jagger Harrison isn't as inhuman as he wants to be.
And that makes him vulnerable.
A cross between a grimace and a smirk crosses my face.
Tomorrow, the memory testing starts. Tomorrow, I start remembering all the terrible things they did to me, all the secrets they tried to bury.
But tonight, I've learned something valuable.
My captor has cracks.
And I've always been good at finding ways in.