Chapter Sixteen Elliot #2
The word hangs between us. Partner. I've never used it before, never had reason to.
Jace is silent for a long moment. I watch him process, calculate, run through implications and outcomes.
Then he nods.
"Partner," he repeats. "I can work with that."
Relief floods through me. I slump back against the cushions, suddenly aware of how tense I'd been.
"Good," I say. "Because I'm not going anywhere."
"No." He leans down, presses his forehead to mine. "You're not."
We stay like that as the morning brightens around us. Two broken people in a borrowed safehouse, planning a war against the world that made them.
The others arrive an hour later carrying bags of food and a box of water bottles.
They toss bags around and we dig in as conversation starts up around me.
"Briar and Landon," he says pointing at them. "And Jinx."
"Not Jagger?"
"He went back. Couldn’t risk staying any longer. Damage control at the Ministry. Making sure Webb's story about what happened doesn't gain traction."
Briar looks different than I imagined—sharper, more polished, the kind of face that belongs in a boardroom or a courtroom. But there's something underneath the polish, a coiled tension that reminds me of Jace.
Beside him sits a taller man with messy curls and glasses, carrying a laptop bag that seems to be permanently attached to his shoulder. He looks around the farmhouse with nervous energy, taking in every detail.
Landon. The accountant who fell for a Custodian heir.
The third figure is younger than the others, compact and wiry, moving with the restless energy of someone who's never learned to be still. He has Jace's eyes—the same flat grey—but where Jace is controlled, this one seems barely contained.
Jinx. The youngest Harrison brother.
Briar's gaze finds me on the couch. Something shifts in his expression—not pity, exactly. Recognition.
"You're awake," he says. "Good. We weren't sure how long you'd be out."
"I'm harder to kill than I look."
His mouth curves. "Clearly. Webb's been underestimating you from the start."
"Webb underestimates everyone who isn't him." Jace moves to stand beside the couch, positioning himself between me and the rest. Not aggressive. Protective. "What's the status?"
"Contained, for now." Briar sheds his coat, drapes it over a chair. "Webb is claiming the facility was attacked by outside forces—rival organization, foreign agents, the usual deflections. The other Directors are skeptical, but they're giving him room to save face."
"And the evidence Landon compiled?"
"Distributed to the right people. Nothing public yet, but enough breadcrumbs that anyone looking will start to see the pattern.
" Briar settles into an armchair, long legs stretched toward the dying fire.
"Abernathy reached out through back channels.
He's willing to provide cover, but only if we can guarantee Webb won't be able to trace the leak back to him. "
"He's scared," Jinx says, dropping onto the floor with his back against the wall. "They're all scared. Webb's been running his own little empire for years, and now people are starting to wonder what else he's been hiding."
Landon hovers near the doorway, clearly uncomfortable. His eyes keep darting to me, then away, like he's not sure whether to speak.
"You can ask," I tell him. "Whatever you're thinking. I won't bite."
He flushes. "Sorry. I just—I read your file. What Webb did to you in there. The neural extractions." He swallows. "I can't imagine going through that and still being able to sit upright and have a conversation."
"You'd be surprised what you can survive when you don't have a choice."
"That's not—" He stops, starts again. "That's not the same as being okay. You're not okay. You can't be."
My eyes burn, and I have to look away.
"No," I admit. "I'm not okay. But I'm alive. And right now, that's enough."
Landon nods slowly. Something in his posture softens.
"For what it's worth," he says, "I'm glad you made it out. Jace… you… it’s special. What you mean to each other." He glances at Briar, a quick, private look. "I know what it's like to find someone in the middle of all this darkness. To have them be the reason you keep going."
I don't know how to respond. The empathy is unexpected, coming from a stranger.
Jace answers for me. "Thank you. Both of you. For the risks you took."
"We didn't do it for thanks," Briar says. "We did it because the enemy of our enemy is our friend. And because watching Webb lose is its own reward."
"Speaking of Webb." Jinx pulls a knife from his boot, starts cleaning his nails with the tip. "What's the plan for making sure he doesn't come after us while you're hiding in the mountains playing house?"
"Jagger's handling the immediate fallout.
Creating enough chaos that Webb has to focus on internal problems instead of external targets.
" Briar steeples his fingers. "The longer-term plan involves Protocol Omega.
Whatever's in Moore's archive, it's important enough that multiple factions want it buried. If we can get to it first—"
"We have leverage," Jace finishes. "Real leverage. The kind that can shift the balance of power permanently."
"Exactly."
The conversation continues, but I find myself drifting. The voices blend together, technical details and strategic considerations washing over me like water.
My body is here, in this farmhouse, surrounded by people planning a revolution.
But part of me is still in that facility. Still strapped to a table. Still feeling the cold weight of the collar against my throat.
I wonder if that part of me will ever fully leave.
Later, after the others have dispersed to various corners of the house, Jace finds me standing at the kitchen window.
Night has fallen again. The world outside is dark and quiet, snow-covered fields stretching toward a tree line I can barely see.
"You should be resting," he says.
"I've been resting. I needed to move."
He joins me at the window, close enough that our shoulders almost touch.
"You're thinking about the facility."
It's not a question. He knows me well enough now to read the tension in my spine, the distant look in my eyes.
"I keep waiting for it to feel real," I say. "The escape. Being here. All of it. But it still feels like a dream. Like I'm going to wake up and be back on that table."
"You're not going to wake up there. I won't let that happen."
"You can't promise that."
"I can promise that anyone who tries to take you again will have to go through me first. And I can promise that going through me is not a survivable experience. I will sew your body onto mine if that’s what it takes to keep you near me at all times."
I turn to face him. In the darkness, his features are all shadows and angles.
"When I was in there," I say slowly, "during the worst of it, I thought about giving up. About just... letting go. Letting the wall come down. Letting Webb win."
Jace doesn't react. Just listens.
"But every time I got close to that edge, I thought about you. About the way you looked at me the morning after we... after the first time. Like I wasn’t broken." My voice cracks. "And I thought, if I give up now, I'll never know what comes next. I'll never know what we could be."
"Elliot—"
"I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty or responsible. I'm saying it because you should know. You're the reason I survived in there. Not because you rescued me. Because the idea of you, the memory of what we had, was strong enough to hold the wall in place when everything else was crumbling."
He's silent for a long moment. Then he moves, closing the distance between us, pulling me against his chest. I go willingly, pressing my face into the hollow of his throat.
"I don't deserve that," he says quietly. "I'm not a good person. I've done terrible things. I'll probably do more terrible things before this is over. And after"
"I know."
"I can't promise to be gentle. Or kind. Or any of the things a normal person would want."
"I know that too."
"Then why—"
"Because you're mine." I pull back enough to meet his eyes. "You claimed me. Now I'm claiming you back. Whatever you are, whatever you've done, you're mine. And I don't let go of what's mine."
Something shifts in his expression. A crack in the stone.
"That's my line," he says.
"I stole it."
"Apparently."
He kisses me then. Soft at first, almost tentative, like he's asking permission. I answer by pressing closer, opening to him, giving him everything I have left to give.
When we finally break apart, both breathing hard, the darkness outside doesn't seem quite so dark.
"We should go back to the others," I say.
"We should."
Neither of us moves.
"Five more minutes," he says.
"Five more minutes," I agree.
We stand at the window together, wrapped in each other, and watch the snow begin to fall.