Chapter 8 Partnership
Partnership
"No, Bunny. Put the fruit snacks down."
I hugged the box of Disney Princess gummies tighter, giving Nathan my best pout. "But they have Rapunzel. She's my favorite because her hair is a weapon."
"They're pure sugar." He gently extracted the box from my hands, replacing it with an apple. "This is fruit. Actual fruit that grew on trees."
"Trees are boring." I spun away from him, my yellow sundress flaring out like a bell. The grocery store's fluorescent lights made everything look too bright, too real. "Ooh, look! They have the cookies shaped like animals!"
Nathan caught my wrist before I could dart toward the cookie aisle. His touch was firm but careful, always so careful with me since this morning. "List first. Then we can discuss cookies."
"Lists are for people who don't trust their instincts." But I let him guide me back to the cart, sneaking a bag of gummy bears into it when he checked his phone. "Besides, sugar helps with planning murders. It's science."
"It's not science." He noticed the gummy bears and sighed. "One bag. That's it."
"You're very controlling, you know that?" I perched on the front of the cart like I'd seen children do, swinging my legs. "Daddy never limited my sugar intake."
The word slipped out before I could stop it. Nathan's hand stilled on the cart handle.
"Gabriel," I corrected quickly, focusing on my white Mary Janes. "I meant Gabriel."
"It's okay," he said quietly. "You don't have to correct yourself with me."
"Yes, I do." I picked at the lace trim on my dress. "Using the right words matters. He taught me that. Words shape reality, and reality shapes behavior, and behavior shapes—"
"Bunny." Nathan moved in front of me, tilting my chin up. "Breathe."
I did, pulling in air that tasted like produce and normalcy. His green eyes were steady, grounding. Safe. It was such a foreign concept that I almost laughed.
"Better?"
"Functional." I hopped off the cart, needing movement. "Can we discuss the Pier 47 approach now? All this domestic normality is making me twitchy."
"In the cereal aisle. Less foot traffic." He guided us there, one hand light on my lower back. "And this is part of the job too. Maintaining your body so it functions optimally during operations."
"My body functions fine on chaos and candy."
"Your body functions despite chaos and candy. There's a difference." He stopped us between the Cheerios and Lucky Charms. "Now. Three entry points to Pier 47. Which do you prefer?"
I closed my eyes, visualizing the layout. "Southeast corner. The loading dock they use for the lunch deliveries. Guard rotation leaves a twelve-minute gap between four-fifteen and four-twenty-seven."
"Good catch. I had it at eleven minutes."
"You weren't accounting for Dmitri's smoke breaks. He's trying to quit, so he takes an extra minute to argue with himself." I opened my eyes, finding Nathan watching me with that intense focus. "What?"
"Nothing. Just... the way you track details. It's impressive."
"Daddy trained me to notice everything. Said the smallest patterns could save your life or end someone else's.
" I reached for a box of cereal, the kind with marshmallows shaped like rainbows.
"Like how you favor your left shoulder. Old injury, probably a through-and-through GSW based on the movement restriction. About two years healed."
His eyebrows rose. "Two and a half. Bureau op that went sideways."
"Milwaukee?"
"Boston. How did you—"
"You mentioned hating clam chowder. Specific food aversions often link to traumatic memories." I added the cereal to our cart. "Plus, your accent gets slightly more pronounced when you're agitated. Native Midwestern trying to sound East Coast neutral. Boston would agitate that linguistic pattern."
"Christ." He shook his head. "Remind me never to play poker with you."
"I'm terrible at poker. Can't bluff." I demonstrated my 'lying' face, which probably looked like a constipated doll. "See? Gabriel said my transparency was a weakness, but then he'd smile like it was actually perfect. I never understood that."
"He wanted you readable to him but opaque to others." Nathan selected some healthy whole grain nonsense cereal. "Classic manipulation. Keep you off-balance about your own abilities."
"Don't." The word came out sharp. "Don't analyze him."
"Okay." He said it simply, without the pushing I expected. "Then let's analyze the Volkov security rotation instead. What did you make of their Wednesday patterns?"
I latched onto the safer topic gratefully.
We worked our way through the store, filling the cart with what Nathan deemed 'actual food' while dissecting the Volkov operation like a frog in biology class.
He had a way of building on my observations, adding layers I'd missed, teaching without condescending.
"Their communication protocol is the weakness," he said, adding vegetables I didn't recognize to our cart. "They rely too heavily on cell towers. A localized jammer would—"
"Create chaos but also limit our own intel. Better to intercept and redirect." I picked up a package of strawberries, inhaling their sweetness. "I have a program that can mirror their frequency, make them think they're talking to each other when really they're talking to ghosts."
"You code?"
"Gabriel insisted. Said a modern weapon needed modern skills." I placed the strawberries carefully in the cart. "I'm fluent in seven programming languages, four spoken ones, and American Sign Language. Oh, and I can forge five different signature styles perfectly."
"Of course you can." He sounded amused and something else. Impressed? "What else did Gabriel teach you?"
"Everything. How to walk, how to smile, how to make people see what they expect instead of what's there." I demonstrated, shifting my posture subtly until I looked younger, more vulnerable. "How to be whatever the moment required."
"And what does this moment require?"
"I don't know." The admission felt dangerous. "That's the problem with being off-program. Without clear parameters, I just... float. Like a doll waiting for someone to pick her up and position her."
Nathan stopped walking, turning to face me fully. "You're not a doll, Bunny."
"Aren't I?" I gestured at my dress, my careful curls, my practiced expressions. "Look at me. Even buying groceries, I'm performing. The cute girl in the sundress who definitely isn't planning to disembowel three men on Tuesday."
"The performance isn't all you are."
"No. Sometimes I'm the weapon hiding under the performance.
But that's just another kind of doll, isn't it?
Pull my string and I kill. Wind me up and I hunt.
Tell me to get on my knees and I do." I laughed, the sound too high.
"At least Barbie had multiple careers. I just have multiple ways to end people. "
He reached out slowly, telegraphing the movement, and tucked a curl behind my ear. "What do you want to be? Outside the performance and the weapon?"
"I want..." I stopped, the words tangling.
What did I want? Gabriel had never asked.
Never cared. My wants weren't part of the program.
"I want to find him. I want to show him what I became.
I want him to be proud. I want to cut his throat.
I want him to hold me and say I'm perfect.
I want to burn everything he built. I want—"
My breathing had gone ragged. Nathan pulled me against his chest, right there in the produce section, and I let him because the alternative was shattering.
"It's okay," he murmured. "Wanting contradictory things is human."
"I'm not good at human."
"You're better than you think." His hand stroked down my back, soothing. "The fact that you can want at all after what was done to you... that's extraordinary."
"Extraordinary." I pulled back, tasting the word. "Daddy used that word once. Said I was an extraordinary investment. I didn't know what it meant."
"That wasn't your fault."
"I know. Daddy explained it all. How I was selected for specific traits—intelligence, adaptability, aesthetic potential. How lucky I was to be worth so much." I picked up an orange, studying its perfect roundness. "One hundred thousand dollars. That's what I cost, apparently."
Nathan took the orange from my hands gently. "That's what desperate people accept. It's not what you were worth."
"Wasn't it? The Institute hasn't gotten an excellent return on investment, I've killed more of their network than they can recruit, I've disrupted their supply chain, assets, and made their best doctor go into hiding or die.
" I watched him add the orange to our cart with strange fascination. "Do you know what the funny part is?"
"What?"
"I'd probably do it again. Choose the Institute over the life I had built for myself." The admission felt like swallowing glass. "At least there I mattered. Had purpose. Wasn't just another forgotten girl."
"You matter now."
"Do I? Or am I just useful?" I met his eyes, genuinely curious. "Can you tell the difference anymore? Between mattering and being useful? Because I can't."
He considered this, and I appreciated that he didn't give me platitudes. "Maybe they're not mutually exclusive. Maybe the real question is whether someone sees your usefulness as your only value."
"And you? What do you see?"
"I see someone brilliant pretending to be broken. Someone dangerous pretending to be delicate." He stepped closer. "I see someone who could kill me six ways before I hit the ground but who's afraid of being touched without warning."
As if to prove his point, my body tensed when he reached for me, that automatic threat response Gabriel had never quite programmed out.
"Sorry," I whispered. "It's not you. It's—"
"It's survival. I know." He kept his hands visible, non-threatening. "We should talk about boundaries. For Tuesday and... otherwise."