Chapter 31
Cason sleeps like he fought for it, like he risked limb and life for it. After what he told me, I think that’s exactly what he did.
It’s easy to believe that if he could spend so many years of his life seeking vengeance for my death, then maybe he would die and come back to life so that he could have me now.
And he does. He has me.
I’m his in every way.
He’s on his side facing me, one arm tucked under the pillow, the other resting loosely between us like he forgot to decide what to do with it. His breathing is steady, finally even, all of the tension he’s had over the past several days gone as if it never existed.
I don’t touch him, just watch.
It’s been nearly half an hour since he passed out while I was cleaning him up, since he collapsed onto the mattress like his body finally gave out after holding itself together for too long. Since everything we didn’t finish seven years ago stopped being unfinished.
My gaze drags over him slowly, taking in every detail, committing it to memory all over again.
His soft skin, his pretty lips, his green hair, the dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose that’s so light they’re barely noticeable unless you’re looking up close.
He has several more tattoos than he did years ago.
There’s one on his back that I’ll have to get a better look at later.
There’s also a geometric tattoo covering his left thigh that features a diagram of a wormhole, various mathematical symbols and equations, and a sketch-style drawing of the Death Star in the center.
It seems just as fitting for him as the unicorn.
But it’s not the tattoos I’m paying attention to right now. It’s all of him. I’ve seen him before, plenty of times. In basements. In shadows. In my head. But this…
This is different.
This is mine.
I didn’t expect it to feel like this. Then again, I wasn’t sure what I expected.
I’ve been with women before, and I knew this would be different.
And it was. But this didn’t feel like my first time with a man.
It felt like my first time with Cason, period.
It was messy and intense and unfiltered in a way that pulled something out of me I didn’t know was still there.
It felt like something that had been waiting too long to happen. Patiently, but desperately.
My hand moves before I think better of it, fingers brushing lightly along his arm, just enough to confirm he’s real. My shadows move too, checking with me, adding an extra layer to the blanket already covering him from the waist down.
He stirs, his nose scrunching before his eyes blink open, slow and heavy with sleep. It takes him a second to focus, his gaze landing on me. Then he grins.
“Wow,” he rasps, voice still wrecked. “That’s not creepy at all. Just watching me sleep like a serial killer.”
I grin back at him. “You talk in your sleep.”
His eyes narrow. “Lies.”
“Mostly insults.”
“That tracks.”
He shifts closer without hesitation, like it’s instinct now, like the space between us doesn’t exist anymore.
His hand finds my chest, fingers splaying there as he studies me in a way that feels a little too aware for someone who just woke up.
His palm is warm over my scar, the one from the gunshot that tore us apart.
But it doesn’t hold power over us anymore. We’re back now.
“That was…” He trails off, but he doesn’t need to finish.
“I know,” I tell him, grabbing his wrist and brushing my thumb over his skin. “I felt it too.”
His eyes get a little misty but nowhere near as wet as they were before he fell asleep.
Not that it bothered me. I may not have known that Cason’s feelings run as deep as they do, but I know now.
Whether his feelings for me are syndrome born or something else entirely no longer matters.
Whatever it is in him, it’s the same in me.
And with the same depth comes the same damage it’s willing to do.
“Okay,” he says, taking a deep breath like he’s trying to keep himself from getting as emotional as before. “So we’ve established that we’re incredibly compatible and should probably never let each other out of sight again.”
“Agreed.”
A giant grin breaks out on his face like he’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted. Then even that breaks when reality comes crashing back down.
“Unfortunately,” he says, his grin fading, “we still have a massive problem.”
“Ah, yes.” What comes to mind isn’t what I assume he’s talking about, but it’s currently the problem I’d prefer to solve first. “The matter of who killed you, who fucking touched you. Who dared to end your life.”
“Technically, they didn’t end it. They just restarted it.”
“Technically, theirs won’t be restarted after I get a hold of them.”
Cason’s gaze dips down to where his hand is still on my chest, and he frowns. But it’s not humorous or dramatic or mischievous. It’s real.
“What?” I ask, my jaw still tight.
“It’s just…” His eyes stay down, and the crease between his brows deepens.
“I guess I haven’t had much of a life ever since I tried to go back to it.
I haven’t had real friends. The guys who helped me with this, they…
” He scoffs as though he already feels ridiculous before even saying it.
“It felt like they were the first friends I’ve had in years. ”
When his gaze finds mine again, holding a kind of gravity I rarely see there, I already know my answer to what he’s going to say next.
“Please don’t hurt them.”
I brush my thumb across his wrist again, obsessed with the feel of his pulse against my skin. “Okay. I won’t.”
“Really?” he asks, clearly wanting to believe me but cautious.
Moving my hand, I lay it on the back of his, lacing our fingers together. “I will give you everything you ask of me, Cason.”
As much as I hate knowing that someone killed him, I blame myself as well. Had I not taken him again, had I not brought him into all of this when I spent so long determined to keep him safe instead, then he wouldn’t have felt the need to do what he did. He wouldn’t have had to experience death.
“Thank you,” he whispers. Then, after a beat, “What was it like for you?”
“Dying?”
He nods.
“It hurt like fuck,” I answer with a sad huff of laughter. “If you mean during, then…there was nothing. Can’t even describe it as darkness. It was literally nothing. I didn’t exist for a little over a minute.”
Cason makes a pensive noise, then says, “It wasn’t like that for me. There was color. A lot of it. Pinks and greens, purples and oranges, some colors I can’t even name. They were everywhere. And it was like I was part of them, like I was them. I know that probably doesn’t make sense.”
“No, not really.” I grin and add, “But I’m sure the experience is different for everyone.”
He nods, still contemplative. Then his jaw ticks, his muscles tensing.
“I wonder what Malcolm’s experience will be.”
“Don’t make Malcolm your problem. He’s mine.”
“That’s bullshit.”
I sigh because I know that look in his eyes. I’ve seen it before. It was the same one in Ash’s eyes, in Sebastian’s. But also in countless others who refused to be owned even if it meant me putting a bullet through their skull.
“I won’t convince you to walk away from it, will I?”
“Absolutely not. He doesn’t get to orchestrate my kidnapping, kill you, ruin both our lives, and just keep going. He needs to be stopped. Not just for us but for everyone he’s ever hurt or will hurt.”
I nod because I’ve felt the same for years.
“That’s what we’ve been trying to do—building something he can’t control, finding Ascended before he does, keeping them off his radar. But he has numbers higher than ours. And powerful ones. I took as many as I could when Ash and I deviated, but if—”
“Ash?”
I can’t help but grin at the jealousy in his tone.
“She and I started the resistance the first time.” At the sight of the way his nose scrunches, I lean forward and place a kiss right on the tip of it. “No need to be jealous, little menace. She was like a sister to me.”
His entire body relaxes. “Oh.” Then, a little of that tension returns. “Was?”
“She was killed. Shortly after…”
I glance away because, fuck, I don’t want to bring that up right now, all that fucking guilt I feel. Not after how amazing this night has been. But Cason is able to figure out what I don’t say.
“Oh,” he says again, his voice like a haunted echo. “Shortly after I fucked everything up.”
When I look at him again, he’s staring at our hands as tears gather in his eyes.
“Look at me, Cason.”
He does.
“I’m so fucking sorry I blamed you for that, that I hurt you for that.
We lost a lot of really good people. Family.
But it wasn’t your fault. It was all Malcolm.
Like you said, he manipulated you. I never should have targeted you just because I couldn’t get my hands on him.
I was the one who fucked up. Not you. Okay? ”
“I still should’ve known better.” His bottom lip trembles. “I should’ve seen that something was wrong. I should’ve been smarter.”
“Don’t do that. We both know you’re a clever pain in the ass.” I squeeze his hand in mine as he lets out a shaky laugh. “But it must run in the family because Malcolm is smart too. He’s fooled us both.”
“And that’s why we need to make him pay.”
“Like I said before, he has powerful Ascended on his side. If we attack outright, we lose. Malcolm is dangerous.”
Cason grins faintly. “Funny, that’s what he said about you.”
I grin too and let out a quiet growl. “Well, I am dangerous.”
“So am I now.”
Where Cason’s hand is still pressed against my chest, a shock zaps through me.
It’s sharp and fast, not enough to do real damage but enough to make every muscle in my chest tense and my breath hitch.
I flinch, and my jaw tightens as the sting fades.
I glance down to where his hand is still splayed over my chest, faint residual heat buzzing against my skin.
Letting out a slow breath through my nose, I drag my gaze back to his, narrowing my eyes. “I guess I didn’t fuck the brat out of you after all.”
He smirks, bright and a little wicked. “I don’t know why you thought that was even possible in the first place.”
“Should I try again?”
“Tempting,” he hums, tilting his head. “I suppose we could handle the whole taking down my evil uncle situation after.”
Right. Reality.
Reluctantly, I say, “Maybe we should do that first.”
He sighs a little dramatically. “Fine. But I already know how.”
“You do?” I ask, arching a brow.
“Of course. We cheat. You’ve been going at him head-on, recruiting, building numbers. It’s good, but it’s slow. And he’s still ahead. So we break him from the inside like he had me do to you. We don’t attack him outright; we go in through a backdoor.”
“I know you have your talents in that department, but to pull something like that off would take—”
“Superhuman abilities.”
His grin comes back, slowly this time. I let go of his hand and shift on the bed to sit a little more upright. He does the same, both of us still facing each other.
“Explain.”
“There’s a second part to what I can do,” he says. “I can see inside systems and networks and coding. It all just makes sense now. And if I touch it? I can access it. I can travel the pathways.”
Something electric slides down my spine, but this time it’s not from him. “You’re saying…”
“I can get into anything. Not hack like before. This is instant. Physical contact, and I’m in. Firewalls, air-gapped systems, whatever the hell Malcolm thinks is untouchable in those internal servers of his?” His grin grows, and his eyes flicker with something dangerous. “Not anymore. Not to me.”
Now what I saw him doing in his apartment earlier makes more sense.
Silence stretches between us as I consider what this means. Cason could be the weapon we’ve always needed.
Still…
“I’m sorry I brought you into all this.”
He scoots closer and places his hand on my chest again. “I’m not, so you shouldn’t be either. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Dying?” I ask with a faint grin of my own.
He shrugs. “The powers are pretty cool, I won’t lie. But, no. I meant you, Reese. No matter what happens, it was all worth it.”
I told him I’d follow him to the ends of the earth.
I’d follow him to the afterlife too, only after killing whoever put him there.
I don’t want that for him, but even I have to admit this is his fight too.
Malcolm betrayed us both seven years ago.
His own uncle. He deserves whatever vengeance looks like for him.
“I’m still sorry I brought you into this,” I tell him again, reaching out to take his chin between my finger and thumb. “But I don’t think I can say I regret it.”
He smiles, and despite everything happening around us, it’s easy. “Good.”
I lean forward and kiss him before dropping my hand and settling back again. “Alright. So we don’t attack Malcolm. We take everything out from under him first.”
“Exactly. We dismantle the Institute from the inside out, at least the part that gives him all his power. We break his control and erase everything. His data on his experiments, his tracking on possible Ascended. You take his people, and I’ll take his foundation.”
“And when he has nothing left…”
“We end him,” he finishes.
Our gazes remain locked, and we both smile.
It’s far from being a foolproof plan, at least yet. We’ll have to talk to Baz and the others because we shouldn’t do this alone. There are a lot of pieces to put together and details to figure out. But it’s a start.
Just as I open my mouth to say as much, Cason’s stomach growls. Loud. He freezes, and I raise a brow.
“Hungry?”
“I just had a near-death experience,” he says defensively. “Combine that with getting my brains fucked out, can you blame me?”
“How about I make us some sandwiches?”
The look on his face is not quite horror; it’s offended. “Absolutely the fuck not.”
“You never complained before.”
“I was a hostage,” he shoots back. “That does not count as a positive dining experience. I haven’t been able to eat a fucking sandwich since.”
“They were good.”
“They were traumatic.”
I tilt my head and ask, “Even if I put mustard on yours?”
He goes still, and his lips part on a breath. Then his expression shifts, something softer threading through the sarcasm. He blinks several times, then inhales slowly, shaking his head like he’s losing an argument with himself.
“Fine,” he mutters. “But if it triggers me, I’m holding you emotionally accountable.”
“That’s fair.”
“Five more minutes though.”
He settles back into the pillows, even closer to me, like gravity just pulls him here now. And this time, when I wrap my arms around him, I know I’ll never let go again.