Chapter Five Jagger #2
The apartment is quiet. Too quiet. I can hear my heartbeat, my breathing, the roar of blood in my ears as I try to still my rapidly pounding heart. I can hear, faintly, the sound of pages turning in the library.
He's still reading.
I close the security feed and stare at the blank monitor. My reflection stares back, dark and hollow-eyed.
Werner Kreiss.
I have a lead. A real lead, for the first time in months of digging. I should be focused on that. Should be planning my next move, identifying his vulnerabilities, figuring out how to get to him without alerting the Custodians.
Instead, I'm thinking about the way Jonah's voice cracked when he came. The way he grabbed my shirt like I was the only solid thing in his world. The way he looked at me afterward, flushed and wrecked, and said "I don't think you're a monster."
He's wrong about that.
But God help me, I want him to keep believing it.
I push back from the desk. My legs are stiff from sitting too long, my neck aching from hunching over the keyboard. The clock on the wall says it's nearly four. I've been in this office for almost ten hours.
The hallway outside is dim, lit only by the pale winter light filtering through the windows at the far end. I walk toward the library, telling myself I'm just going to check on him. Make sure he's eating. That's basic asset management. That's strategy.
I'm halfway there when I smell garlic.
The kitchen. He's cooking again.
I follow the scent and find him at the stove, his back to me, humming something off-key while he stirs a pot. He's wearing my clothes again. A sweater that hangs off one shoulder, sweatpants rolled up at the ankles because they're too long. His feet are bare against the tile floor.
He looks comfortable. He looks like he belongs here.
"Are you going to stand there staring, or are you going to help?"
He hasn't turned around. Hasn't looked at me, and yet he knew I was there.
"I don't cook."
"Bullshit. I've seen your kitchen. No one owns that many pans without knowing how to use them." He glances over his shoulder, and there's something careful in his expression. "Come chop vegetables. It won't kill you."
"I have work to do."
"You've been working for ten hours. Your eyes look like two piss holes in the snow, and you're doing that thing where you stand completely still like a malfunctioning robot.
" He turns back to the stove. "Chop the onions.
Consider it an order, since apparently that's the only language you understand. "
I should leave. Should go back to my office and keep digging into Kreiss, keep building the case against Project Omega, keep doing the only thing I'm actually good at.
Instead, I cross to the cutting board where an onion is waiting, pick up the knife, and start chopping.
Jonah doesn't comment. Just keeps stirring, keeps humming that tuneless song. The domesticity of it is unbearable.
"I found something," I hear myself say. "In the archive."
"Yeah?" He doesn't look at me. "Something useful?"
"A name. Werner Kreiss. He's a financier. Geneva-based. Handles money for people who can't afford paper trails."
"And he's connected to what you're looking for?"
"He signed off on wire transfers to facilities associated with Project Omega. He might be the key to finding where the new program is operating."
Jonah thinks for a second before he speaks. "You're telling me this why?"
"I don't know."
He turns off the burner and faces me. This close, I can see the faint bruise on his lower lip where I bit him. Can see the way his pupils dilate slightly when he looks at me.
"You don't know," he repeats.
"I don't do this. I don't share operational details with assets. I don't cook dinner. I don't—" I stop. Set down the knife. "I don't lose control."
"And this morning?"
"Was a mistake."
He laughs. Not bitter this time, just tired.
"You keep saying that. But you're still standing in your kitchen, chopping onions, telling me about your secret investigation.
" He takes a step closer. "That doesn't seem like mistake behavior, Harrison.
That seems like you want something and you don't know how to ask for it. "
"I don't want anything."
"Man, I should change your name to Liar J." Another step. He's close enough to touch now, close enough that I can smell my own soap on his skin. "You want to know what I think?"
"No."
"I think you've spent your whole life being someone you’re not.
Following orders, suppressing feelings, doing whatever they programmed you to do.
And I think somewhere along the line, something broke.
Not in a bad way. Just..." He tilts his head, studying me.
"A teensy, tiny sliver. Just enough for the human underneath to start leaking through. "
"I'm not human."
"You keep saying that too." His hand comes up, hovers near my face, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his skin without touching.
"But I've seen the books you annotate. I've heard you almost laugh at my jokes.
I watched your hands shake when you touched me this morning.
" His voice drops. "That's not a psycho, Jagger.
That's a man who forgot he was allowed to feel things. "
I should step back. Should put distance between us.
Instead, I lean into his hand.
His palm is warm against my cheek. Calloused from years I don't know about, gentle in a way that makes my chest tight. He doesn't move, doesn't push. Just holds me there, looking at me like I'm… human.
"This is a bad idea," I say.
"Probably."
"I could destroy you."
"You already did." His thumb traces my cheekbone. "And I'm still here."
I close my eyes. His touch is the only solid thing in the world.
"The food is burning," I say eventually.
"No it isn't. I turned off the stove."
"Of course you did."
He laughs, soft and genuine, and the sound does something terrible to my insides.
I open my eyes. He's still there. Still looking at me like that.
"I don't know how to do this," I tell him.
"Neither do I." His smile is crooked, self-deprecating. "But I've got nothing but time, and you've got a nice library. We can figure it out."
"You're my prisoner."
"I'm your guest with very limited options." He drops his hand, and I miss the warmth immediately. "Now come eat dinner. We can talk about your Geneva financier and pretend we're normal people for an hour."
He turns back to the stove, and I watch him plate the food, and decide that all the terrible truths waiting to be uncovered can wait.
My mind is centered on the way he said we.
Like we're something. Like we could be something.
How did it get here? How did it go from captive to suitor in the blink of an eye?
He sets a plate in front of me. Some kind of pasta with vegetables and a sauce that smells better than anything I've made in months. My stomach growls, and I realize I haven't eaten since yesterday.
"Stop analyzing the food and just eat it," he says, dropping into the seat across from me. "It's not poisoned. Although now that I say it out loud, I realize that's exactly what a poisoner would say."
I take a bite. The flavor explodes in my mouth. I don’t know why this shocks me, but it does. "You can cook."
"I can do a lot of things, it turns out. I just needed some of my memory to come back." He twirls pasta around his fork. "Before I became an investigative journalist, I remember writing food pieces. Restaurant reviews, cooking techniques, interviews with chefs. It was how I paid for grad school."
"I didn't know that."
"You don't know a lot about me. Just the parts that showed up in interrogation transcripts." He says it casually, but there's weight underneath. "Which, for the record, is a terrible way to get to know someone. Very biased sample."
"What would you want me to know?"
He pauses, fork halfway to his mouth. "You're asking me about myself? Voluntarily? Without it being part of a psychological evaluation?"
"Forget it."
"No, no, I'm just surprised." He sets down the fork. "Okay. Let me think. Things Jagger Harrison should know about Jonah Doe." He taps his fingers against the counter, that nervous habit I've come to recognize. "I hate olives. Like, viscerally. They're the worst food. I will die on this hill."
"That's what you want me to know?"
"I'm building up to the deep stuff. Remember, my memory was wiped, so I have to dig to try and remember the me I was before.
Give me a minute." He grins, and it transforms his face.
Makes him look younger, lighter, like the person he might have been if we'd never gotten our hands on him.
"I talk when I'm nervous. Which you've probably noticed.
It's a defense mechanism, according to every therapist I saw before the whole 'getting kidnapped by a shadow organization' thing. "
"You saw therapists?"
"I was a journalist covering dark shit. Trafficking, corruption, organized crime. You don't wade through that without picking up some trauma." He shrugs. "That wasn't exactly great for my mental health."
"I'm sorry."
The words come out before I can stop them. Jonah stares at me like I've grown a second head.
"Did you just apologize?”
"It seemed appropriate."
"That's..." He shakes his head. "I don't even know what to do with that. The man who broke my brain is now apologizing for things that happened. This is surreal."
"I can take it back."
"Don't you dare." He picks up his fork again. "This is progress, Harrison. Emotions. Empathy. Human connection. We're making a real person out of you yet."
We eat in silence for a while. The food is warm, the apartment is quiet, and for a few minutes, I can almost pretend this is normal. That I'm just a man eating dinner with someone who makes me feel things I don't understand.
"Tell me about Kreiss," Jonah says eventually.
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything. Following money trails was literally my job." He leans forward. "Let me help."
"You're an asset. You don't help. You provide information and I do what I need to, we are not equals."
"Right. And I can provide better information if I understand what we're looking for." His brown eyes meet mine. "You said I got close to something before you took me. Let me get close again. Let me remember."
It's a terrible idea. Involving him in the investigation is a security risk, a complication, a violation of every protocol I've ever followed. He should just stay an informant. A memory bank. Someone who can draw the lines between the pieces I’m connecting.
But… he's right. He was closer to Project Omega than anyone else. His memories, fragmented as they are, might be the key to finding the new facilities.
And maybe, if I'm honest with myself, I just want an excuse to keep him close.
"Tomorrow," I say. "We'll go through the files together."
His smile is brighter than the overhead lights. "Was that so hard?"
"Yes. I’m going to shower."
He laughs, and the sound fills the apartment, and I'm starting to understand why Jace gave up everything for the chance to feel like this.
I sit down at the counter and pick up a fork.
It's not much. But it's a start.