Chapter 7 #2
And debts like that don't get erased.
They get paid.
Slowly.
Every day, she wakes up under the same roof as the child whose blood carries the thing she built. Every hour, she works to find the other patients who received it. Every moment, she exists inside the world she broke.
That's the price she hasn't calculated yet.
And the worst part for her is that she won't run from it.
I've already seen that much.
When I pushed her against the wall, when my hand closed around her throat, and I leaned in close enough to feel her breath, she didn't try to escape.
She looked at me as if she understood exactly what I was capable of, and she stayed right where she was. That's the part of Stratton I'm still trying to figure out.
Because a woman who accepts punishment that easily is either completely broken or she's waiting for it.
The way she's gotten under my skin should disgust me.
Instead, it sharpens something darker.
A restless, physical awareness that has nothing to do with anger and everything to do with the fact that when I pushed her against that wall and closed my hand around her throat, her body didn't react like someone who wanted to escape punishment.
If Lily-bug decides Stratton is interesting, and she will, Stratton won't be able to avoid her. Which means sooner or later she'll step over that line, and when she does, I won't just have the authority to correct it.
I'll have an excuse.
The truth sits there for a moment before I force my attention back to the table, where Lily has just declared the triceratops the undisputed ruler of the dinosaur kingdom.
I nod solemnly at the verdict.
But somewhere in the back of my mind, a quieter part of me is already anticipating the inevitable collision between my daughter's curiosity—and Stratton's inability to disappear.
A few minutes later, Ghost nods toward the hallway.
"Thorne."
"Go check out your room, Lily-bug." I squeeze Lily's shoulder and stand. "Second door on the left, right next to Grandma and Papa, and right across the hall from me."
She hops off the chair and runs down the corridor, already curious about whatever new territory is waiting there.
Ghost and I walk after her at a slower pace.
The sleeping quarters branch off the main hallway in clean concrete rectangles. Lily's room is the first one, already set up with a small bed, bright blankets, and a shelf stacked with stuffed animals and books that someone planned ahead to bring. My mother's touch.
Across the hall is mine.
A king bed sits against the far wall. Minimal furniture. A bathroom with a glass-walled shower that takes up half the space.
Functional. Comfortable. Temporary.
Ghost leans against the hallway wall and studies me for a moment.
"There's a lot of tension between you and Stratton."
I don't answer immediately.
"Tell me why I shouldn't have the others rotate watch on her." Ghost's steady gaze holds mine, completely unreadable.
"Stratton is mine." The response comes out before I've fully considered it.
Ghost's expression doesn't change.
"As long as she's in the same building as my daughter." I meet his gaze without blinking. "Stratton is mine to handle."
He considers that for a moment, weighing the words the way he weighs everything.
"We need her functional." Ghost shifts his weight, his posture hardening. "Her job is to track down every patient who received ML-273. That's the mission."
"I know."
"She's your asset. Handle it." Ghost's words hang there a second after he says them.
"I will."
He studies me for half a beat longer, then nods once and pushes off the wall, heading back toward the common room.
I watch him go.
Ghost didn't say it outright, but the meaning is clear enough. Don't let it interfere with the mission.
The kind of quiet nonjudgment commanders sometimes give when they don't want to manage the personal lives of the people under them.
But that isn't what he meant.
Ghost noticed the tension.
He noticed the way Stratton and I looked at each other outside the building. He noticed enough to know something volatile is sitting between us, and what he just gave me wasn't approval. It was a boundary.
Handle it.
Control it.
Don't let it compromise the operation.
Which means if something happens between Stratton and me, Ghost isn't going to step in like a school principal breaking up a problem. He's going to let it play out.
Right up until the moment it threatens the mission.
I stand there a moment longer in the quiet hallway, thinking about the woman locked thirty feet away.
About the way my hand fit around her throat.
About the way she looked at me when I leaned in close enough that a kiss would have been the simplest thing in the world.
Then I exhale slowly and turn toward the common room.
Because right now there's a dinosaur war happening at the table, and Lily-bug is waiting for reinforcements. I stay where I am in the hallway, listening to Lily moving around the common room, asking Halo whether dinosaurs can live in a bunker.
And despite everything: the bunker, the mission, the fact that Stratton is currently locked thirty feet away, my mind drifts back to that same moment.
Not the control room in Ghostwater Dam, where I pressed a gun against her chest and she accepted the possibility that I might pull the trigger.
No.
The corner of the building.
The way she looked at me like she understood what I was capable of and didn't flinch.
I drag a hand over my face and stare down the quiet corridor.
This is going to be a long few weeks.