26. Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Six
They lie in the bed, on their sides, facing each other. There are no words. Her green eyes stare into his blue ones, and they communicate in a thousand tiny ways. The quirk at the corner of her mouth. The swipe of his thumb over her hip. The downward tick of her eyes to his lips. The burgeoning interest rumbling in his chest.
It is a familiar dance to both of them.
Seconds later, it all falls apart.
They are tearing her away from the circle of his arms, holding him down. He fights with all his considerable strength, but they are prepared for it. They are like him: enhanced and strong, but unlike him, they lack empathy. This is a job. And their job is to take her from him.
She fights, too. She catches one in the throat with her fingers and whirls to the next. She fights like a dancer, quick and dexterous, deadly. Another goes down, but two more take their place, and they subdue her with a dart. She goes limp.
He screams, thrashing…
“Finn?” Her voice was soft, cautious.
His eyes snapped open. They were in the safe house. Her hair was wet, and she held his pistol pointed steadily at him. She was dangerous. He could be on her in a second, snapping her wrist and taking the gun. Three steps to the window and outside. He knew the path down.
“You’re safe here,” she said. And he heard the truth in her voice, the certainty.
It brought his gaze back to her. Her eyes were green, just like in the dream. Tension banded through his chest despite the recognition.
“Kathleen,” Finn gritted out between his teeth, slumping against the bed. His skin felt too hot.
“Yes.” Kathleen’s voice was soft, warm. He heard the clunk of metal against wood, and the mattress shifted as she climbed onto it.
Finn turned into her, and she pulled his head onto her lap, hands stroking over his hair. He breathed in her scent, eyes closing. He felt the tightness in his chest beginning to ease.
Just a dream.
To make sure, he curled his hand over her bare leg, feeling the warmth of her skin. He could feel the Hound in his thoughts, watching, though the Handler was blessedly silent.
“Do you want to tell me what the dream was about?” Kathleen asked.
Green eyes. Loss. But the thoughts of it were scattering away, leaving only the aftermath. His fingers tightened, and when she flinched, he realized he was squeezing her leg too hard.
I can’t be trusted around her. The thought came and went. Finn wasn’t sure if it was the Hound’s thought, the Handler’s, or his. That he didn’t know should concern him, but he was consumed by a new awareness.
“They’re going to take you away from me,” Finn said. He felt breathless as a wave of melancholy swept over him. “I will be sent to maintenance, and I won’t remember this feeling. How you make me feel. I won’t remember you.”
Kathleen’s hands faltered, stilling in his hair. “I’ll remind you,” she said. “I won’t let you forget me. I don’t know if you noticed, but I can be pretty stubbornly determined.”
It made him smile, thinking of her fierce-eyed declaration against Command. The smile didn’t last long, though, since Finn knew how dangerous such a declaration was. He had thought his sharing with her would convince her it was a bad idea, but it had done the opposite. He didn’t want to lose her. He couldn’t.
“Hey.” Kathleen’s fingers brushed over his forehead. “I can see you getting in your head again. How about you take a shower, and I order us some food before we head out tonight?” He nodded, and she smiled. “Your choice.”
Finn frowned. He normally ate sparsely and simply. Proteins. His idea of eating wasn’t the same as hers, and the idea of choosing something felt impossible.
Kathleen clicked her tongue. “Do you want something spicy or plain?”
He considered. He hadn’t tried food with spices much before, but the idea appealed to him.
“Spicy,” he decided.
Her smile brightened. “I did some searching. There’s a place nearby that delivers great vindaloo. Or if you want comfort food, we can get Mexican.”
“Comfort food?”
“Yes, you know. Food that’s terrible for you but hits the right spot and makes you feel all warm inside?”
Finn wasn’t familiar with the concept, but it sounded intriguing. It took a second to get past the idea that he couldn’t want things. “I want that. Comfort food.”
“Okay.” Kathleen leaned over, cradling his face and brushing her lips against his, before she eased her legs from beneath his head.
He watched her walk to the kitchen counter, suddenly aware she was wearing nothing but the shirt he had been wearing all day, the material falling to her bare thighs. The sight stirred desire in him, but that wasn’t anything new. Nor was the want to stay with her, to touch her, for her to touch him. It was an addiction.
But his body had needs. He tended to matters in the bathroom and took a shower. He peeled off the bandage she’d applied. The skin there had closed over already. His ribs still ached, but it was a distant, acceptable level of discomfort.
Finn emerged from the bathroom wearing only pants since she had taken his shirt. The window got his immediate attention, his eyes ticking over distant sniper perches, looking for threats. As he moved away from the window, a folder sitting on the bedside table caught his gaze.
Without thinking, he flipped the folder open, and all those muscles that had loosened in the shower tensed again. He recognized the location of the various photos—the Imperial Silk Palace. It was one thing to complete a mission and leave, but it was another to be confronted with vivid photographic evidence of what he had done.
He sank onto the bed and spread the photos out. Dead bodies had never bothered him. He knew the men he killed were enemies of America, even if he didn’t always know what their crime was. He didn’t need to know to do his job.
That was when Finn saw her.
Her face swam up from memory. She was one of the ones he dreamed about. One of the ones whose life he had taken. On the back of the photo was a handwritten name—Lisa Zhao. As he stared at her photo, memories surfaced. He had been in the Palace, heading for the VIP room. Without fail, he put a minimum of two bullets in anyone with a weapon. When he had done his initial clearing of the main room, there remained a tattoo-covered bouncer in his way. Rather than draw his gun, he’d reached for the slim Asian waitress nearby and pulled her in front of him as a human shield.
The Hound didn’t see the gun being drawn, but he heard the metal against leather, and he shot without hesitation. Shot through her, splattering her chest with blood. He remembered her dark eyes snapping wide, the startled curve of her mouth as she stumbled away and fell, and then he gave her no more thought. He shot the bouncer again, blowing past him into the VIP room to complete his mission.
“She had a young child, a son.” Finn hadn’t heard Kathleen approach, which was wholly out of character for him. Her voice had a hushed timbre.
Finn didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t justify what he had done.
Kathleen leaned past him and gathered the photos, tucking them away. “This is the past,” she said quietly. “But you can make different choices now. You can become more than what they forced you to be. You can make your own choices about your future and what that looks like.”
He had no idea what that could be or what that could look like. The idea of making a choice, of trying to decide what to do, let alone having a future based on it, was too overwhelming to contemplate. So he fell into the old routines. He stood, cracking the window, feeling her eyes on him the whole time like an increasing weight. The faint sound of cheerful music drifted down from one of the apartments nearby.
“Food is on its way,” Kathleen said.
She was watching him with a measured expression he had learned to translate as some mixture of natural reserve and wanting to give him space. He wasn’t sure why she did it. He always wanted to reduce the distance between them, to touch her.
Finn needed a distraction, an excuse. He did a sweep of the apartment, but instead of threats, he looked for opportunities. His gaze settled on the window and the notes of music they could hear.
“Maybe we can dance. For practice?”
Kathleen’s lips parted in surprise, and she smiled her brilliant, warm smile. “Okay.” She swayed toward him, the loose shirt shifting around her thighs.
As she reached him, he swept her into his arms, lifting her. Her hands wrapped around his neck for balance, her green eyes bright with emotion.
“My feet actually have to touch the floor to dance, Finn,” Kathleen said, though there was nothing of recrimination in her voice.
“Picky.”
“Realistic.”
Finn grunted in concession and lowered her to the floor. He wasn’t sure how to start, and he stilled.
Kathleen saw right through him. Her hands unwound from around his neck, fingers briefly touching his cheek. He felt light even as she guided his hands, one to her shoulder blade, her fingers twining with the other. She took the lead, and he mimicked her slow steps. He could feel the awkwardness of not knowing the moves, but he didn’t care. He was touching her.
He heard the distant ding of the elevator and the approaching footsteps. By the time the knock came, he was kissing her forehead, light steps carrying him to the door.
Mexican was an excellent choice. The food was delicious and spicy, and the nachos, in particular, were enjoyable. Comfort food, she had called it, and he could see why. As they ate, they made plans for the coming evening. He usually felt nothing for his missions. This time, though, his gut fluttered with anticipation.