Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
MALLORY
The safe house smelled like disinfectant and recycled air.
Not home. Not neutral. Not even the studio. It also felt… off. Or maybe that was me.
By the time we got back from the station, the adrenaline had already burned off, leaving that hollowed-out ache behind my eyes—the one that came when a moment had gone exactly right and still cost too much.
The ride back had been worse than quiet. Not awkward. Not tense. More guarded with everyone thinking, withdrawing, and shoring up their arguments. Fuck knew I was. So many words that none of us were saying.
Then, Flint and I had curated a relationship built on solid boundaries that involved work.
Now, he seemed to stitch himself to my side when it suited him.
For all his irritation with me that I didn’t tell him about my plan before going on air, he’d also been absent for over twenty-four hours and hadn’t mentioned a damn thing to me either.
We weren’t married. Or anything more than colleagues. Okay, technically, he was my boss but only with regard to the stories. My employment contract was with the network and it had a few caveats in it.
Some I’d probably need to reach out to my agent and my attorney about if this continued. I missed my apartment in a way that surprised me.
Not the space itself, but the ritual of it.
Kicking off my shoes at the door. Pouring a glass of water I didn’t need.
Standing still long enough for the noise to drain out of me.
I’d built my decompression deliberately over the years—small, repeatable actions that reminded my nervous system it was safe to let go.
None of that existed here.
Here, the walls were too clean but they were also kind of a grayish-white that made it feel darker. The furniture was too generic, designed for function and not comfort. Nothing belonged to me, which meant nothing absorbed me either. Every sound lingered. Every thought echoed. All of it felt alien.
I retreated to the bedroom I’d claimed for myself and dropped my bag into the chair near the door before rubbing my temples. I’d made it halfway to the bathroom when a door clicked softly behind me. I didn’t have to turn to know who it was.
Brewster never announced himself.
He didn’t hover, either. That might have been worse. Instead, he occupied space the way gravity did—present, inevitable, impossible to ignore once you noticed the pull. Right now, that irritated me far more than it should have.
“You should eat something,” he said.
I huffed a breath that might have passed for a laugh. “You followed me in here for that?”
“It matters,” he replied evenly.
I turned then, arms crossing automatically. Defensive, though I didn’t feel attacked. While I wanted to pee and take some aspirin, I was also not going to keep running into the bathroom since he decided to corner me in here. “I’m fine.”
He studied me for a beat too long. “You’re wired and depleted. Those aren’t the best states.”
I didn’t argue. Instead, I grabbed the full bottle of water I’d forgotten to take with me earlier. I cracked it open and took a long drink, as if by hydrating, I ended the argument.
The silence stretched. He made no pretense of not watching me. To the point that I ended up draining the damn water bottle. Now I really needed to pee. Ordering myself to not think about it, I raised my chin and met him stare for stare.
“What?” The word landed between us, a challenge and a dare. If he wanted to know something, this would be the best time to ask it.
“You don’t get to go home,” he said without apology. Though, the journalist in me noted that he wasn’t actively being cruel, that really didn’t make it sound any better.
“I’m aware.” The snap in my voice surprised me.
I hadn’t meant to sound as irked as I felt, but then again, I didn’t need him slapping me with the truth either.
“I just went on air, threaded a needle with a man who’s proven he notices just about everything, and has a successful track record with getting away with killing multiple people—since we’re stating facts we know. ”
“You were aware of the risks.”
“Are you deliberately trying to provoke me?” Because if he was, I really didn’t think he’d like me throwing something at his head. It would be unprofessional and probably fall somewhere along the lines of assaulting a federal officer, but in my current mood—I could live with that.
“No,” he said slowly, almost too slowly and he raised both of his hands in a placating gesture. “However, you’re second guessing yourself.”
“I’m not,” I denied it immediately.
“You’re still keyed up,” he said.
“So you keep saying.”
“Because you keep deflecting.”
I turned fully toward him now. “And what would you suggest instead?”
He didn’t answer right away. He let the silence sit between us—deliberate, measured. I recognized it instantly. The same held beat I’d used on air. My body responded before my mind could argue with it. Pulse ticking up. Focus narrowing.
Finally, he said, “Nothing.”
I blinked. “Nothing?” How unhelpful.
I paused, giving myself the time to get my thoughts back in order. The three, deep breaths, also helped calm my pulse and ease some of the agitation vibrating in my blood. “I’m back in a box that doesn’t belong to me and it’s proving challenging to my normal routines for decompressing.”
“It’s also temporary,” he reminded me in a much kinder voice. Yeah, he’d gone from provocation to soothe the crazy lady.
“So is everything,” I replied. Then, after a beat, quieter: “That doesn’t make it easier to sleep.”
Something flickered across his face. Not guilt. Consideration.
“I know,” he said. That was new. Not I understand. Not it’s protocol. Just—I know. It settled somewhere uncomfortable in my chest.
I turned away before I could unpack it. “If you don’t mind…”
“You and Flint didn’t finish that conversation,” Brewster said, voice level.
“No,” I agreed. “We postponed it.”
“For your sake?”
I glanced at him. “For everyone’s.” Then I flicked a look at the door. I didn’t want to have this discussion with Brewster either.
He stared at me for a long moment, then nodded. “I’m having dinner brought in.”
“Fine.”
“No preference?” He sounded skeptical.
“Not really.” End of subject. That seemed to get the message across.
It was his turn to let out a slow sigh, a gentle exhalation and then he nodded. Without another word, he left my room and my shoulders drooped as soon as the door closed. Pivoting, I went for a change of clothes and headed to the bathroom. I needed to pee, wash my face, then decide on a shower.
Then I needed a new plan. Ultimately, I went with the shower. The ritual wasn’t quite what I would have done at my apartment, but it granted me the illusion of wiping the slate clean. Taking a breath. Reviewing what worked, what didn’t, and what was bothering me.
Flint.
Brewster.
The Unsub.
Not necessarily in that order.
I couldn’t do much with Brewster or the Unsub, not yet. But Flint? The push and pull worked between us because it challenged me to hone my stories, to get to the hook and the meat. Right now, he felt more like a roadblock than a razor blade and it bugged me.
Tilting my head back under the water, I let it wash over me, and imagined it taking the tension and irritation away so I could see a little more clearly.
Flint hadn’t said much on the ride back.
The quiet in the car had been filled with all the things we weren’t saying.
Me. Brewster. Flint. Frankly, it wouldn’t have surprised me if the fresh-faced puppy agent who’d been driving had been biting his tongue.
More than once, I’d caught him eyeing me via the rearview mirror.
Still, I didn’t blame Flint for not continuing the argument in the car. What he had to say to me was not for public consumption. The words he had said while we were still at the studio echoed rang sharply even now.
You don’t get to decide that.
You went on air without clearance.
We’ll talk about this later.
Later meant judgment. Later meant consequences beneath the veneer of concern.
And the words I’d thrown back at him—measured, precise, cutting exactly where I knew they would—hadn’t given me the satisfaction I’d expected. They’d left a sting instead. Not regret exactly, but more than enough to make me unsettled as hell.
I hadn’t meant to sideline him.
I just hadn’t been willing to wait.
I shut off the water and stood there for a moment longer than necessary, hands braced against the tile, letting the last of the steam cling to my skin.
Waiting had never been my strength.
Waiting was where momentum bled out quietly. Where someone else decided when the window closed. I’d learned that early—learned it the hard way. If you hesitated, the narrative moved on without you. If you waited, then suddenly you were reacting instead of shaping.
That was the justification, anyway.
The truth was messier.
I dried off, wrapped myself in a towel that smelled faintly of bleach, and caught my reflection in the mirror. Flushed. Focused. Wired in that brittle way that didn’t read as exhaustion until it cracked.
I looked like someone who’d gotten away with something. That thought made me pause for a beat. Maybe that was the problem.
Flint wasn’t wrong to be angry. He was wrong about the fact he could or should control the story and the clearance, but he wasn’t wrong about the consequences. I’d cut around him, not because I wanted to undermine him, but because I didn’t trust him not to slow me down.
That wasn’t nothing.
In light of Brewster’s habit of just walking in when he wanted to, I stayed in the bathroom until I was dressed. Soft clothes. Bare feet. Armor put away for the night. When I stepped back into the bedroom, the space still felt borrowed. Temporary—that word was getting under my skin.
There was a knock at the door a few minutes later. Not abrupt. Not tentative.
Brewster.
I opened it halfway.
“They’re bringing food in ten,” he said. “I told them something bland.”
“Wise,” I said. Then, before I could stop myself, “Thank you.”
He nodded once, as if he’d been expecting that and nothing more. He didn’t step inside. Didn’t lean. Didn’t fill the doorway the way he easily could have.
That restraint did something to me. Again.
“You don’t have to stay,” I said. It came out sharper than intended.
“I know.”
“Then why—”
“Because tonight isn’t over for you,” he said quietly. “And you don’t decompress by yourself as well as you think you do.”
What the hell? I stared at him. “Is that an observation, Agent Brewster, or a judgment?”
“A pattern,” he replied. “One you manage well. Until you don’t.”
I should’ve bristled. Should’ve shut that down. Instead, I felt the truth of it land somewhere uncomfortably precise.
“I’m not asking you to fix anything,” I said.
“I’m not trying to.”
That again. That refusal to step into the role I half-expected him to occupy.
He shifted his weight, just slightly. “But I am here. If you want company. Or silence. Or someone to act like a buffer until you decide you don’t want one.”
He was offering to run interference with Flint. Guilt burned like bile at the back of my throat.
Because if I was being painfully honest with myself, I wanted the buffer. I wanted someone standing between me and whatever Flint decided to throw.
I hated that about myself.
I didn’t answer right away.
Then: “Silence,” I said. “For now.”
He inclined his head. “I’ll be in the next room.”
After he left, I sat on the edge of the bed and let myself feel it—the ache, the residual buzz, the strange hollow satisfaction of a move that had landed clean and still rearranged the board.
I’d gone on air knowing he would hear me. What I hadn’t anticipated was how clearly I would feel exposed afterward.
Not by the unsub. Not by Flint.
By Brewster.
That awareness unsettled me more than any reprimand could have. It wasn’t desire—right? I wasn’t interested in him. The thought didn’t come out as strictly declarative as it should.
Uncertainty was dangerous in its own way.
I lay back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the muted sounds of the house settling around me. Somewhere down the hall, a door opened and closed softly. Plates. Footsteps. Normalcy pretending to exist.
Tomorrow would bring consequences. Flint would press. Brewster would watch. The unsub would respond—or not—and either option would matter.
But tonight, there was only this: the aftermath of choosing not to wait, and the realization that I didn’t know how to want less momentum anymore.
That might cost me.
The question was—who would make me pay?