Chapter 44
ROGUE
We get back to the Rot and it's like we never left. Nobody looks up, their priorities being the next supply run and whose turn it is at the hub. Never thought I’d say this, but the predictability feels good.
Mara's waiting. Of course she is. She's on Vi the second we're inside, arms around her, and Vi finally lets go of the grief she's been holding, into her oldest friend's shoulder.
And over Vi's head, I catch something I wasn't looking for.
Kade's hanging back by the wall watching Mara hold Vi with a look on his face he doesn't know he's wearing. And when Mara glances up and finds him there, something passes between the two of them, quick, quiet, gone like it never happened.
Interesting. I keep it to myself and say nothing, because that's their business and because I've got my own stuff to deal with.
Later, when the building's gone quiet and Vi's still, she finds me in my room. She stands in the doorway and looks at me for a long moment. I know that look. She's reading my face the way I taught her to read everyone's, and she's finding something there I usually don't let anybody see.
A day ago, I'd have shut it down. Made a joke. Turned her around and given her something else to think about.
I don't this time.
I let her look, let her see me, the long day we’ve had, and the thing that came loose in my chest while I watched her get her father back. Years of armor have been chipped at over the last few hours, and now I’m practically naked with nowhere to hide.
"You disappeared on me today," she says. "You checked out somewhere back in that room and you never really came back."
"Delaney Street," I say. And for once, I don't change the subject.
She gets me. She doesn't push. Doesn't ask for the whole story. She knows that's not how you get anything out of me. She just crosses the room and puts her hands on my chest, over the part of me that's been locked down since before she knew me.
Someday I'll tell her the rest, the whole story about all the years I've tried to keep it locked up.
Outside this room, in a suitcase that's hers now, is a list of names that could burn the whole rotten thing down.
Out there somewhere is a spy who sold us a man's location and vanished.
But for tonight, Renner's safe, and the woman I'd burn the world for is standing in my room with her hands over my heart, not looking away.
Tomorrow, we start taking them down.