Chapter 21 Edge #2
"Tell me you'll still want me after. When the hunt's over. When there's no mission holding us together."
"I'll want you until my heart stops beating. Maybe longer."
I pressed my forehead against his, breathing the same air. "Tell me we survive this."
"We survive this."
"Tell me I'm more than what he made me."
"You're everything." His voice rough with emotion I'd never heard from him before. "You're vengeance and mercy and terrible beauty. You're the reason I remember how to feel anything beyond mission parameters. You're the most human person I know, and that includes all your inhuman edges."
I was crying again. Or still. Time had gone strange, elastic. The clock on the nightstand said we had two hours until we needed to move, but it felt like seconds. Felt like years.
"I don't want to be strong anymore," I admitted. "Just for a little while. Can I just... not be strong?"
"Yeah." He shifted us carefully, lying back with me still on top of him. "You don't have to be anything right now. Just be here. Just breathe."
So I did. Lay on his chest and listened to his heartbeat—steady, certain, alive. Felt his hands in my hair, not pulling or directing, just touching. Gentle contact with no expectation or demand.
"After," I said eventually. "After we kill him. What happens to us?"
"Whatever we want."
"That simple?"
"That simple." He paused. "What do you want?"
I thought about it. Really thought about it for the first time. What did Bunny want when she wasn't hunting, wasn't surviving, wasn't running from or toward something?
"Quiet," I said finally. "Somewhere quiet where I can figure out who I am without him. Maybe..." I trailed off, embarrassed by the domesticity of my thoughts.
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe a house. Nothing fancy. Just... walls that are mine. A bed no one's ever been chained to. Kitchen where food isn't a reward for obedience." I pressed my face against his chest, hiding. "Stupid, right? Killer playing house."
"Not stupid." His hands kept their steady rhythm in my hair. "Sounds perfect. I'm good with tools. Could fix up something cheap, make it ours."
Ours. The word sent warmth through me that had nothing to do with arousal and everything to do with hope.
"What about you?" I asked. "What does Nathan Cross want when the mission's over?"
He was quiet long enough that I looked up, finding his face thoughtful in the growing light.
"Never thought about it," he admitted. "Been mission-focused so long I forgot there could be an after." His hand cupped my cheek. "But now... yeah. House sounds good. Quiet sounds better. You sound best."
"Even if I'm never normal? Never fixed?"
"Who the fuck wants normal?" His thumb traced my lips. "I want you. Damaged and dangerous and mine. We'll figure out the rest as we go."
I kissed him. I couldn't not kiss him after that. Sealing promises we might not survive to keep.
When we broke apart, the sky outside was lightening. Grey dawn creeping across the parking lot, counting down to the confrontation. My body responded with fresh tremors, conditioning recognizing the timeline.
"I should get ready," I said, not moving.
"Few more minutes."
"He's waiting."
"Let him wait."
But we both knew I couldn't. The compulsion to move, to hunt, to end this was getting stronger. Part programming—even now, I responded to Gabriel's schedules—and part survival. The longer we waited, the more time my conditioning had to fully activate.
"Help me," I said, sitting up. "Help me remember who I am now. Before we go. Before I see him."
Nathan sat up with me, studying my face. "How?"
"Mark me." The words surprised me, but I knew they were right. "Not... not like he did. But something. Reminder that my body answers to someone else now."
Understanding dawned in his eyes. He shifted me off his lap, standing and moving to his bag. When he turned back, he was holding a marker. Black ink, permanent.
"Where?" he asked.
I pulled off my shirt, exposing skin mapped with Gabriel's careful damage. Found a spot over my heart he'd never touched—small miracle of unmarked flesh.
"Here."
Nathan knelt in front of me, marker poised. "What should I write?"
I thought about it. What words could anchor me? What reminder could cut through conditioning when I was drowning in trained responses?
"Mine," I said finally. "Just... mine. Not his, not yours, not anyone's but mine."
He met my eyes, understanding deeper than words. Then carefully, reverently, he wrote the word over my heart. His handwriting was precise, controlled. Nothing like Gabriel's flowery script.
"There," he said when finished. "Truth in permanent ink."
I looked down at the word, feeling something settle in my chest. Such a simple thing. Four letters. But seeing it there, black against pale skin, made something click into place.
"Thank you," I whispered.
"Don't thank me yet." He capped the marker, then pulled me to my feet. "We still have to get through today."
Today. The word felt too small for what was coming. Confrontation. Resolution. The end of one story and maybe the beginning of another. If we survived. If I stayed myself. If, if, if.
But standing there in the growing light, Nathan's mark over my heart and his promises in my ears, I felt something I hadn't expected.
Ready.
Not confident—I wasn't stupid enough for confidence. Not calm—my body still trembled with proximity responses. But ready. Whatever happened in the next few hours, I'd face it as myself. This version. The one who'd chosen her own name and her own purpose and her own person to love.
"Shower," Nathan said, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "Breakfast. Weapons check. Then we end this."
"Then we end this," I agreed.
I moved toward the bathroom, then paused. "Nathan?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For seeing me. The real me, not just the damage or the conditioning."
"Thank you for letting yourself be seen."
We looked at each other across the dingy motel room, two damaged people preparing for war. But also maybe something else. Something worth surviving for.
Time to find out who Bunny really was when the hunt was over.