Chapter 7 Truth #2
I thought about it, genuinely trying to remember. "Gabriel and I went to an art museum once. Part of a cultural education unit. I liked the Caravaggios—all that dramatic light and shadow, violence made beautiful."
"Wasn't that a long time ago."
"Art seems frivolous when there's work to do."
"Everything seems frivolous when you're empty." He set down the knife. "Trust me on that."
"I'm not empty." But the protest sounded weak even to me. "I have purpose. Direction."
"You have programming." He moved closer, and I felt that dangerous magnetism again. "There's a difference."
"Is there? You're following your own programming—find patterns, solve problems, avenge Emma. How is that different?"
"Because I chose it." His hand lifted to my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone. "After she died, after everything broke, I chose to become this. What did you choose, Bunny?"
"I chose to survive." The words came out raw. "Every day in that place, I chose to survive instead of breaking completely. And when he finally said I was ready, I chose to use what he made me to burn down everything he built."
"Even if it burns you too?"
"Especially then." I leaned into his touch, starved for contact that wasn't violence. "I'm already ash, Nathan. At least this way, I take them with me."
His other hand framed my face, holding me steady. "What if you're not ash? What if you're just... paused? Waiting for something to start you again?"
"Like what?"
"Like this."
He kissed me.
It wasn't gentle. Wasn't romantic. It was two broken things pressing their sharp edges together to see if they'd fit.
His mouth was demanding, controlled, breaking apart my responses to catalogue them like evidence.
I kissed back with three years of emptiness, trying to remember what want felt like outside of violence.
When we broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
"That was inappropriate," I said.
"Extremely." He didn't let go of my face. "Want me to apologize?"
"No." I gripped his wrists, not pulling away but not pulling closer. "I want you to explain what this is. What you think this is."
"Recognition." His thumbs stroked my cheeks. "Two predators acknowledging they hunt better together than alone."
"Is that all?"
"No." He pulled me against him, and I let him, curious about the solid warmth of another body. "It's also wanting. Which I thought I'd forgotten how to do."
"Wanting is dangerous." But I didn't move away. "It creates weakness. Vulnerabilities."
"Everything creates vulnerabilities. The trick is choosing which ones are worth it." His arms wrapped around me, and I realized I was shaking. "When's the last time someone held you? Not restrained, not positioned. Just held?"
"Gabriel. The night before he left." The memory hurt, but Nathan's arms made it bearable. "Said I was perfect. Said I was ready. Held me all night like he was memorizing me."
"How long ago was that, Bunny?"
"Six months, two weeks, three days." I pressed my face against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. Steady, controlled, alive. "This is probably a mistake."
"Probably." He rested his chin on my head. "But I'm excellent at making productive mistakes."
"What happens Tuesday? After the Volkovs?"
"We'll find more patterns. Follow more threads." His hand stroked down my spine. "Your wall needs updating anyway. I have resources you don't, contacts in places that stayed dark even when I had a badge."
"You want to partner with me."
"I want to see where this goes. The work and... this."
I pulled back enough to see his face. "I don't know how to be with someone. Not without programming, not without specific parameters."
"Neither do I. Not anymore." He smiled, and it was almost soft. "Maybe that makes us perfect for each other."
"Or perfectly wrong."
"Only one way to find out."
I studied him—this beautiful, dangerous man who'd seen me covered in blood and offered to help. Who carried his own ghosts and fury and channeled them into the same dark work that consumed me. Who kissed like he was solving a case and held like he was preserving evidence.
"Fine," I said. "Partners. Provisionally."
"What are the provisions?"
"Don't get in my way during work. Don't touch my wall without permission. Don't try to fix me." I paused. "And don't leave without saying goodbye. I hate that."
"Agreed. My provisions: Don't lie to me, even small lies. Don't take unnecessary risks alone. Don't disappear without word." He touched my face again. "And let me cook for you sometimes. You're too thin."
"I eat."
"Protein bars don't count."
"They're efficient."
"They're depressing." He moved toward my kitchen. "When's the last time you had real food?"
I tried to remember. "Tuesday? Maybe Monday. Time blurs together."
"Christ." He started opening cabinets, making disgusted noises at their emptiness. "No wonder you're shaking. You're running on adrenaline and obsession."
"It's worked so far."
"Until it doesn't. Until you make a mistake because your blood sugar crashes mid-mission." He found my refrigerator equally barren. "We're ordering food. Now. And tomorrow I'm taking you grocery shopping like actual humans."
"I don't—"
"Non-negotiable." He already had his phone out. "Thai food? Chinese? Pizza?"
"I don't care."
He looked at me steadily. "Choose something. One small decision that isn't about death or missions or hunting. Just food you might enjoy."
It felt monumental, this tiny choice. "Thai. Medium spice. Pad see ew."
"There. Was that so hard?"
"Yes."
He laughed, quiet and real. "We're quite a pair, aren't we? Can't remember to eat, can't stop hunting, can't exist outside our damage."
"But we're very good at our damage."
"The best." He finished ordering, then moved back to the murder wall. "Show me everything. Every connection, every theory. If we're doing this, I need to know what you know."
So I did. Spent the next two hours walking him through three years of obsessive research. He asked sharp questions, made connections I'd missed, added information from his own sources. We ate Thai food straight from containers while discussing body disposal methods and network hierarchies.
It should have been macabre. Instead, it felt like coming home.
"There," I said finally, showing him the last section. "That's everything. My entire purpose mapped out in string and photos."
"It's impressive. Obsessive and probably unhealthy, but impressive." He set down his food, studying me. "You know this won't bring him back, right? Gabriel. Even if you burn down everything he built, he's still gone."
"I know." I touched his photo one more time. "But it's all I know how to do. Hunt, kill, follow patterns. He made me too well."
"He made you sharp. That's not the same as well." Nathan pulled me away from the wall, back into his arms. "Sharp things can choose what they cut."
"Can they?"
"We'll find out." He kissed my forehead, the gesture achingly gentle. "Tuesday. The Volkovs. We'll start there and see where the pattern leads."
"Together."
"Together." He held me closer. "Two broken things making productive mistakes."
I let myself settle against him, memorizing this new feeling. Safety that wasn't about weapons or walls. Connection that wasn't about shared violence (though that was there too, humming between us like electricity). Just two damaged people choosing to aim their sharp edges in the same direction.
"Nathan?"
"Mm?"
"Thank you. For not running. For seeing what I am and staying anyway."
"Thank you for showing me." His voice rumbled through his chest. "For letting me see behind the performance."
"It's not entirely performance. The broken doll thing."
"I know. The best masks are mostly truth." He pressed another kiss to my hair. "But there's more underneath. I saw it today, when you were working. Perfect focus, absolute purpose. It was beautiful."
"You have a strange definition of beauty."
"I have an experienced definition. Beauty isn't always soft things and light. Sometimes it's precision and darkness and the will to cut out cancers." His arms tightened. "Sometimes it's a girl who sings lullabies to monsters while she takes them apart."
We stayed like that, quiet in my empty apartment with the murder wall watching over us.
Two predators learning to trust, sharing space and silence.
It wasn't love—neither of us remembered how to do that.
But it was recognition. Partnership. The beginning of something that might be worth the vulnerabilities it created.