Chapter Sixteen Elliot
The world comes in fragments.
The rumble of the van beneath me. The pressure of Jace's arms wrapped tight around my chest. Voices overlapping, urgent and indistinct, words I can't quite parse into meaning.
I try to hold onto consciousness, but it keeps slipping through my fingers like water.
"—losing him—"
"—just exhaustion, he needs—"
"—how far to the—"
Jace's voice cuts through the noise, low and close to my ear. "Stay with me, Elliot. We're almost there."
I want to tell him I'm trying. I want to tell him that every cell in my body is fighting to stay present, to stay in this moment where I'm free and he's real and the collar is gone from my throat.
But the darkness keeps pulling at me, soft and insistent, promising rest I haven't had in days.
"Elliot." His hand cups my face, tilts it toward him. "Open your eyes."
I do. It takes more effort than it should.
His face swims into focus above me. Grey eyes, sharp jaw, the familiar angles I've been holding onto inside my head for what feels like forever. He looks exhausted. There's blood on his collar, a bruise forming along his cheekbone.
"There you are," he says.
"Here I am," I manage.
His mouth does something complicated. Not quite a smile. It’s something softer. Almost sad.
"Don't fall asleep yet. I need you to stay awake until we get somewhere safe and we can look over your injuries."
"Bossy."
"Always."
I let my head rest against his shoulder and focus on breathing. In. Out. The rhythm of his heartbeat against my cheek, steady and strong.
The van takes a sharp turn, throwing me against him. He absorbs the impact without flinching, adjusts his grip to keep me stable.
"How much longer?" he asks someone I can't see.
"Twenty minutes to the first safehouse." A voice I don't recognize. Male, tense. "Jinx is taking the long route to throw off any tails."
"And the facility?"
"Lockdown. Webb's screaming for blood, but he's in no shape to chase anyone. You did a number on him."
"Not enough of one."
The van hits a pothole. Pain lances through my ribs, sharp enough to make me gasp. Jace's hand moves to my side, probing gently.
"Bruised," he murmurs. "Maybe cracked. We'll check when we stop."
"Webb didn't—" I swallow. "He didn't hit me. It was the restraints. I pulled against them during the extractions."
Jace goes very still.
"Right."
"He… He made me relive things." I close my eyes, but that's worse—the memories are right there, waiting. I open them again. "Everything I tried to forget. Every bad thing that ever happened. He dragged it all out and made me watch."
Jace doesn't respond. But his arms tighten around me, and something in the quality of his silence tells me everything I need to know about what he's feeling.
"I held the wall," I whisper. "The thing you told me to protect. He couldn't get to it."
"I know." His voice is rough. "I knew you would."
"How?"
"Because you're stronger than anyone gives you credit for. Including yourself."
I don't feel strong. I feel dead inside, held together by nothing but the warmth of his body and the stubborn refusal to fall apart before we're somewhere safe.
But I let myself believe him anyway.
Just for a moment.
Just until the van stops and reality comes crashing back.
The safehouse is a farmhouse forty miles outside the city.
I don't remember much of the arrival. Hands helping me out of the van. Gravel crunching under feet that aren't mine. A door opening onto warmth and light and the smell of wood smoke.
Then I'm on a couch, wrapped in blankets, and Jace is kneeling in front of me with a first aid kit.
"This might sting," he says, and presses an antiseptic wipe to my wrists.
It does sting. I hiss through my teeth but don't pull away.
The wounds are ugly. Deep grooves where the cuffs bit into skin, ringed with purple bruises and crusted with dried blood. Evidence of how hard I fought against the restraints, even when fighting was pointless.
"You should have stopped pulling," Jace says. His voice is neutral, restrained, but his hands are gentle as he cleans the wounds.
"Couldn't. During the extractions, I couldn't control it. My body just... reacted."
He nods. Wraps gauze around my left wrist, then my right. His fingers linger on my pulse point, counting beats.
"Your heart rate is elevated."
"I wonder why."
His eyes flick up to meet mine. Something passes between us, a current of understanding that doesn't require words.
"I'm going to check your ribs," he says. "I need you to lift your shirt."
I comply, peeling the thin fabric up to expose my torso. The bruising is worse than I expected—a mottled canvas of purple and yellow spreading across my left side.
Jace's jaw tightens as he examines the damage. His fingers probe carefully, pressing in increments, watching my face for signs of pain.
"Bruised," he concludes. "Nothing displaced, but you'll need to take it easy for a few weeks."
"A few weeks." I laugh, though nothing is funny. "Are we going to have a few weeks?"
"We're going to have whatever time I can buy us." He pulls my shirt back down, smooths the fabric against my stomach. "Right now, that means resting. Healing. Letting the others handle the logistics while you recover."
"The others?"
"Briar and Landon. Jagger and Jinx." He sits back on his heels, studying me. "We're not alone in this anymore."
I process this. Try to fit the information into a framework that makes sense.
"Briar Harrington. The one Webb wanted you to kill."
"The same."
"And you're working with him now."
"We have aligned interests."
I shake my head slowly, marveling at the absurdity of it all. A few hours ago, I was slated to die. Now I'm sitting in a farmhouse surrounded by people who've committed treason to save me.
"Why?" The question comes out before I can stop it. "Why would they risk everything for someone they don't even know?"
Jace is quiet for a moment. When he speaks, his voice is softer than I've ever heard it.
"Because they understand what it means to find something worth risking everything for. And because destroying the system that hurt you is the same as destroying the system that hurt them."
"So I'm a symbol. A cause."
"No." He reaches out, cups my face in his palm. "You're a person. The first person who ever made me want something more. My person." His thumb traces my cheekbone. "You asked me once why I saved you. I didn't have an answer then. I do now."
"What is it?"
"Because the world without you in it isn't a world I want to exist in.
Because every equation I run, every scenario I model, every future I try to imagine—none of them work if you're not there.
" He pauses. "I don't know if that's love.
I don't have a reference point. But if it isn't, it's close enough that the distinction doesn't matter. "
My throat closes. Tears burn behind my eyes, but I'm too exhausted to cry.
"Jace."
"Yes?"
"I need you to hold me. Just for a while. I need to know this is real."
He doesn't hesitate. He climbs onto the couch beside me, careful of my injured ribs, and pulls me against his chest. I tuck my head under his chin and breathe him in—sweat and blood and everything that's just him, familiar and grounding.
"Real," he says against my hair. "This is real."
I sleep.
Not the drugged unconsciousness of Webb's facility, filled with nightmares and forced memories. Real sleep. Deep and dreamless, held in place by the weight of Jace's arm across my waist and the steady rhythm of his breathing.
When I wake, the light has changed. Grey morning seeps through curtained windows. The fire has burned down to embers, casting a faint orange glow across the room. My stomach growls and a pang runs through me.
Jace is still beside me. His eyes are closed, but I know he's not sleeping. The pattern of his breath is too controlled, too deliberate.
"You can stop pretending," I murmur.
His eyes open. Grey meeting grey dawn.
"I wasn't pretending. I was resting."
"There's a difference?"
"For me, yes."
I shift carefully, testing my ribs. The pain is still there, but duller now, more manageable. My wrists throb under the bandages. My throat aches where the collar sat for so long.
But I'm alive. I'm free. I'm here.
"What now?" I ask.
"Now we move to a more secure location. Briar has a place in the mountains, far from the Ministry's reach. We regroup there, let things settle, plan our next steps."
"And Webb?"
"Webb is still alive and according to Jagger, trying to get us before we leave the country." Jace's voice hardens. "I should have killed him when I had the chance."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because getting you out was more important than getting revenge. And because dead men can't be made to suffer."
I absorb this. The cold calculation beneath the words, the promise of violence to come.
"You're going to go after him eventually."
"Yes."
"And the others? The Custodians?"
"We're building something. Briar calls it a revolution.
I call it a reckoning." He props himself on one elbow, looking down at me.
"The system that created me, that bought and sold you, that treats people like inventory—it can't stand.
Too many people have invested in tearing it down.
Webb's overreach gave us the opening we needed. "
"What do you need from me?"
The question surprises him. I see it in the slight widening of his eyes, the pause before he answers.
"I don't need anything from you except for you to heal. To be safe. To exist somewhere I can find you when the fighting is done."
"That's not enough." I push myself upright, ignoring the protest of my ribs. "I spent years being passive. Being property. Letting things happen to me because I didn't have a choice. I won't do that anymore."
"Elliot—"
"I mean it." I meet his gaze, steady despite the trembling in my hands. "Whatever comes next, I want to be part of it. Not as a symbol or a cause or a thing to be protected. As a person. As your partner."