Chapter 38 Julia
Julia
The transport lifted off with a low, chest-deep roar that rattled my bones.
I stood there longer than I should have, watching the shrinking silhouette until it was nothing but a flicker against the pale sky.
He’s coming back, I told myself.
He promised.
So had a nineteen-year-old version of him once, in a dusty driveway that smelled like cut grass and motor oil. His mother told me he said he would be back.
He hadn’t broken that promise on purpose. Life had dragged him away, chewed him up, and spit him out wearing a different name on his chest and scars no one could see.
This time is different, I told myself. We know each other, and we love each other.
This time, he has more reasons to come back.
This time, I’m one of them.
Boone stepped up beside me, hands in his pockets, watching the sky like it might give us answers.
“He’ll be all right,” he said.
I didn’t answer.
“He loves you,” Boone added.
My head snapped toward him. “How did you—”
He gave me a look. Pushed his black cowboy hat back from his eyes. “I might be less touchy-feely than some of the guys, but I’m not blind. Man looks at you like you’re the only thing keeping him from walking into oncoming traffic for fun.”
A shaky laugh escaped me. “That’s a specific image.”
“Accurate, though.” Boone shrugged. “He’ll come back. If only because I’d kick his ass if he didn’t.”
“Get in line,” I muttered.
Logan jogged up, breath puffing in the cooler air. “Bird for Quantico leaves in twenty. Are you riding with us, or are you planning to relocate to Missouri permanently?”
“I’m coming,” I said.
I took one last look at the empty sky.
Then I turned and walked away.
Quantico looked exactly the same. I’d only been here once, but it looked the same as it did then.
The glass. The concrete. The security badge readers that always beeped half a second too late. The smell of old coffee that never quite left the hallways.
It was almost offensive.
How could everything look unchanged when I’d watched a man die in a column of light? When I’d felt the heat of an AI’s last breath on my skin? When I’d nearly lost the man I loved to a machine designed to eat his guilt?
I hugged the guys goodbye and boarded another plane for Copper Cove, where this all started.
My captain met me in a conference room lined with frosted glass. He hugged me once, quick and hard, then pretended we were just colleagues again.
He wanted to know everything I’ve been doing since I left, of course I couldn’t say anything.
I told him we hunted down the bad guys and won. And a few other things that had nothing to do with what really happened.
When it was over, my captain squeezed my shoulder. “You did good, Marlow. Go home. Sleep.”
Home.
Right.
My home on the lake felt different the second I stepped through the door. I missed him.
It smelled like stale air and laundry detergent. The throw blanket was still half on the couch where I’d left it. A mug sat on the coffee table with a faint ring of dried coffee at the bottom.
I set my bag down and just stood there.
Waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen.
He’s in D.C., I reminded myself. Probably stuck in a windowless conference room. Probably being asked the same questions until his voice goes hoarse.
I wandered into the kitchen on autopilot, made coffee, and stared at the pot without drinking it.
My phone sat on the counter, silent.
Hours crawled.
I paced.
Checked the phone.
Sat down.
Stood back up.
Opened my laptop. Stared at the empty screen. Closed it.
At some point, the adrenaline crash hit. My hands shook. My heart pounded against my ribs like it wanted out.
The images I’d managed to hold at bay all day crashed over me at once—Reese’s face as the light took him. Hawk’s eyes when he said I belong to you. The look he’d given me at the ramp, like he was memorizing me just in case.
I sank to the kitchen floor, back against the cabinet, knees pulled up.
I didn’t sob.
The tears came quiet and stubborn, slipping hot down my cheeks, blurring the edges of my reality until the only thing I could feel was the ache of the empty space where Hawk should be.
I’d spent years building my life on being self-sufficient. On not needing anyone. On knowing how to stand alone when everyone else fell apart.
Now I’d gone and done the most dangerous thing a person like me could do.
I’d given someone the power to leave.
My phone buzzed.
I jumped like I’d been shot, scrambling for it.
Unknown secure number.
My heart rocketed.
I answered. “Julia.”
Static. Then his voice, rough and low.
“Hey, Detective.”
I pressed my eyes shut, laughter and tears tangling in my chest. “Took you long enough.”
“They just released me from the room of Very Serious Men and their Very Serious Charts,” he said. “Didn’t think they’d appreciate me stepping out mid-interrogation to make a personal call.”
“How considerate of you,” I sniffed.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I looked around my home—at the half-unpacked bag, the untouched coffee, the damp spots on my jeans where tears had fallen.
“Define okay,” I said.
He was quiet for a second. I could hear distant hallway noise behind him. Muffled voices. A door closing.
“You cried,” he said softly.
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve got that congested, trying-to-sound-normal voice,” he said. “You cried.”
“I hate you,” I muttered.
“No, you don’t.”
I swallowed hard. “How’s D.C.?”
“Gray,” he said. “Loud. Smells like old carpet and ego.”
Despite everything, a laugh slipped out. “That sounds about right.”
“They want me back tomorrow,” he said. “Different group. Different set of questions. They’re circling something.”
“Circling what?”
I could hear him lean against something—could picture him in some anonymous hallway, one shoulder braced against the wall, phone to his ear, eyes tired.
“A position,” he said at last. “Some kind of liaison. Oversight on new AI guidelines. Policy advisory. Fancy words for ‘we’d like you to sit in a box and be our conscience on command.’”
My stomach clenched. “And?”
“And I told them I’d think about it,” he said.
Fear snapped up my spine. “Think about it.”
“Julia,” he said quietly. “Breathe.”
“No,” I said. “No, Lucas, you don’t get to—”
“I’m not taking it,” he cut in.
I went silent.
“They just don’t know that yet,” he added. “I wanted to hear your voice before I walked back in there and slapped their golden offer back across the table.”
Something in my chest cracked open.
“You’d turn it down?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Even if it means less control?”
“Yes.”
“Even if it means someone else screws it up?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” My voice broke. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I have finally figured out what matters,” he said, each word like a weight, solid and sure. “And it’s not a seat at their table. It’s you.”
My throat closed.
“Julia,” he said softly. “I’m coming home. I just need a few days to make sure walking away sticks.”
“How many days?” I asked, hating how small I sounded.
He exhaled. “Three. Maybe four.”
Three.
I could survive three.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“Say it like you mean it.”
“Okay,” I said again, a little stronger.
“I need you to believe me,” he said. “Because if I start thinking you don’t, I’ll tear this building down and walk out in handcuffs.”
The image was so perfectly him that a watery laugh bubbled out. “I believe you.”
“Good,” he said. “Now go to bed. You sound like you’re sitting on the floor.”
I glanced at the tile. “I hate how much you know.”
“You love it,” he said.
I didn’t argue.
We stayed on the phone a few minutes longer, not saying much. Just breathing together, letting the line between us hum with something almost tangible.
When we finally hung up, the house still felt too quiet.
But the space inside my chest didn’t feel quite so hollow.
He was coming back.
For the first time in a long time, I believed it.