Chapter 16 #2
I pull back just enough to look at him. His face is serious. Intent. No trace of the irreverent pilot, the chaos agent with the spinning keys, and the death wish he won’t name.
He’s quiet for a moment. His thumb traces a pattern on my shoulder blade—idle, almost unconscious. The simplicity of it breaks something else inside me. Another wall I didn’t know I was defending.
“Come on.” His voice is gentle. “Let’s get the blood off your hands.”
The bathroom light is brutal. Fluorescent, buzzing faintly, illuminating every flaw in the ancient tile and cracked mirror. The smell is stronger here—mildew beneath the bleach, rust from old pipes.
The mirror reflects a woman I almost don’t recognize.
Hair tangled, half-dried tears tracking through whatever makeup survived the night. The ivory slip wrinkled and twisted. The queen pendant still hangs at my throat—silver chess piece, his gift, the only thing I’m wearing that isn’t stained with this night.
And my hands.
Costa’s blood, dried brown in the creases of my palms. Under my fingernails. In the whorls of my fingerprints.
I stare at them. Can’t look away.
Seven-seven-three-alpha-delta-nine-nine-one-zero.
The last thing he gave me. Encoded in my memory because I was too disciplined to write it down, too well-trained to leave a paper trail, too good at my job to do anything except memorize a dying man’s final gift while his blood soaked into my dress.
The realization hits like ice water.
I’m the only one.
Costa is dead. I have both codes now—mine and his. If something happens to me before we reach Ghostwater, before I can execute the Hard Lock …
The mission dies with me.
“Sarah.”
Torque is behind me. He’s in the mirror—rumpled, exhausted, steady.
“I need you to wash your hands.”
“I know.”
I don’t move.
“Levi.” His name feels different in my mouth. Real. “I need to tell you something.”
He goes still. Waiting.
“The codes. Ray’s codes.” I meet his eyes in the mirror. “I’m the only person on the planet who has both sets now. If something happens to me—”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“You can’t promise that.” My voice is steady now. Director voice. Mission voice. “Phoenix is hunting us. We have fifty hours and hundreds of miles of hostile territory. I’m a single point of failure.”
Understanding dawns in his expression. “You want me to have them.”
“I need you to have them. Both sets.” I turn to face him. “Seven-seven-three-alpha-delta-nine-nine-one-zero. That’s Ray’s. Mine is four-four-one-echo-bravo-seven-two-eight-five. Say them back.”
He does. Perfect recall, first try.
“Again.”
He repeats them. No hesitation.
“If I go down,” I say, “you get to that control room. You execute the Hard Lock. You burn it all down.”
Something shifts in his face. A muscle ticks in his jaw.
“You’re not going down.”
“But if I do.”
A long pause. The fluorescent light buzzes. Somewhere, a pipe groans.
“If you do,” he says finally, “I’ll burn it all down. Every last byte.”
The weight on my chest eases slightly. Redundancy. Backup. Protocol.
But also—trust. I just gave him the keys to the sky.
“Okay.” I turn back to the mirror. Back to my bloody hands. “Okay.”
“Now.” His voice softens. “Let me help you wash that off.”
I can’t do it myself. My hands are shaking too badly, or maybe it’s that I can’t bring myself to wash Ray’s blood off my skin like he was just dirt, just something to be cleaned away and forgotten.
“Just let me do this for you.”
He moves past me and turns on the faucet. Tests the temperature with his wrist, adjusts it, and tests again. Warm but not hot. The same care I watched him give an aircraft engine three nights ago—was it only three nights?—in the Cerberus hangar.
The water smells faintly of minerals. Desert water, pulled from deep underground.
“Come here.”
I step forward. Stand beside him at the sink.
He takes my right hand first. Holds it under the water.
The blood starts to dissolve immediately. Brown streams into the white basin, circling toward the drain. It swirls away. Costa’s blood. Costa’s life. Disappearing into plumbing I’ll never see again, in a motel I’ll never return to, in a state where no one knows my name.
“You’re okay.” Torque’s voice is low, rhythmic. “Just water. Just soap. One hand at a time.”
He squeezes liquid soap from the dispenser—industrial pink, chemical-sweet smell that doesn’t quite mask the underlying mustiness—into his palm. Works it into a lather between his hands. Then takes mine.
His fingers move over my skin. Methodical. Thorough. Into every crease, under every nail, across every surface where Costa’s blood has dried. He’s gentle but not hesitant. Like this is something he knows how to do. Like he’s washed blood from someone’s hands before.
I don’t ask. The question can wait.
“This part right here.” He turns my hand, exposing the webbing between my fingers. “Always gets missed.”
He’s right. There’s blood there too. He works the soap into it, careful, patient.
“When I was twenty-three,” he says, still focused on my hands, “I had to wash my CO’s blood off after an IED hit our convoy. He didn’t make it. But someone had to clean up. Had to function. So I learned how to do this.”
His voice is matter-of-fact. Not seeking pity. Just—explaining.
“It doesn’t mean you don’t care,” he continues. “Washing it off. It means you’re still here. Still alive. Still able to keep going.”
The water runs clear now over my right hand. He sets it aside gently and takes my left.
Same process. Same patience. The blood dissolving, the soap working, his fingers moving over mine with a tenderness that makes my chest ache. The chemical-sweet smell of the soap mingles with the mineral water, washing away the last traces of copper.
“Ray would want you to wash it off,” he says quietly. “He gave you his code so you could finish this. He didn’t give it so you could stand in a bathroom at four AM and drown in guilt.”
Burn it down, Sarah. All of it.
“He said burn it down.”
“Yeah.” Torque looks up, meets my eyes in the mirror. “So let’s burn it down. Tomorrow. After you sleep. After you eat something besides grief and adrenaline.”
The last of the blood swirls away. My hands are clean. Pink from the warm water, but clean.
He doesn’t let go immediately. Holds my hands under the stream for another few seconds, like he’s making sure. Then turns off the faucet and reaches for the thin towel hanging on the rack.
He dries my hands himself. Each finger. Each palm. The same thoroughness.
When he’s done, he sets the towel aside and looks at me in the mirror. Both of us, framed in that brutal fluorescent light. Wrecked. Exhausted. Together.
“Better?”
I nod. Don’t trust my voice.
“Good.” He squeezes my hands once, then releases them. “Clothes on the bed. Nothing fancy, but it’s clean.”
He got sweatpants. A T-shirt that says NEVADA: BATTLE BORN with a faded state flag.
Underwear still in the package—plain cotton, wrong size, perfect.
And shoes—cheap canvas slip-ons, the kind that cost twelve dollars and fall apart in a month, but they’re roughly my size, and they’re not barefoot on desert asphalt.
“The truck stop’s selection was—limited.”
I almost smile. Almost.
I change in the bathroom. Peel off the slip that still smells faintly of Vegas, of the gala, of everything that happened before Costa’s room—champagne and perfume and the ghost of hope.
Pull on the cheap cotton underwear, the sweatpants two sizes too big, and the T-shirt that smells like industrial plastic and new fabric.
Clean. Anonymous. Not the director of the NRO.
Just a woman in a motel room in the middle of nowhere.
When I come out, he’s changed too. Different T-shirt—plain black, smelling of the same new-fabric chemical scent—and loose pants that might be pajama bottoms. The Glock is on the nightstand, within reach. Old habits.
The bed is still the only one. Still the only option.
I think about the sofa in Vegas. The way I claimed it before he could, because even after the chapel kisses, even after the casino, I needed that barrier. That distance.
I don’t want distance anymore.
“I don’t—” I stop. Start again. “I’ve never done this.”
“Done, what?”
“Needed someone.” The admission costs me something. I’m not sure what. “I don’t know how to need someone.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then he crosses to the bed, pulls back the covers, and sits on the edge.
“It’s not that complicated,” he says. “You’re tired. I’m tired. There’s one bed, and neither of us is sleeping on the floor. So we sleep.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.” A pause. “Unless you want me to make it weird. I can make it weird. I have many talents.”
The laugh that escapes me is wet, broken, and real.
“There she is,” he says, softer now. “That’s twice tonight.”
“Twice, what?”
“Twice you almost laughed.”
I shake my head. Move toward the bed. Stop at the edge, suddenly uncertain.
He reaches out. Takes my hand. Tugs me gently down onto the mattress.
The sheets are thin and smell like bleach, but they’re clean. The pillow is flat but present. The mattress dips under our combined weight as he shifts, makes room, and opens his arms.
I curl into him without letting myself think about it. My head on his chest. His arms around me. His heartbeat steady under my ear.
This is new. All of it. The vulnerability, the surrender, the simple act of being held.
My whole life, I’ve slept alone. Even in relationships—the few I allowed myself—I kept distance. Separate beds, separate rooms, separate lives. Intimacy was a liability. Trust was a weapon that could be turned against you.
My father taught me that.
But my father is a thousand miles away, Costa is dead, Phoenix is hunting us, and this man is holding me like I’m something worth protecting. He smells like cheap truck-stop soap now, and beneath that, still himself. Still the scent I’m learning means safe.
“Your heart’s racing,” he says quietly.
“I know.”
“You’re safe.”
“I know that too.”
His hand comes up to my hair. Strokes it back from my face. Slow. Rhythmic.
“Then sleep.”
My eyes are already closing. The exhaustion I’ve been holding at bay for—how long? Two days? Three?—finally crashing over me like a wave I can’t outrun.
The codes are still there, looping softly in the back of my mind. Both sets now. Seven-seven-three-alpha-delta-nine-nine-one-zero. Four-four-one-echo-bravo-seven-two-eight-five. But quieter now. Background noise instead of sirens.
And Levi has them too. Redundancy. Safety. Trust.
Costa’s face surfaces one more time. Not the dying version. The one from the gala, when he finally believed me. When he said, “I’ll give you my code,” and meant it.
Burn it down, Sarah. All of it.
I will, Ray. I promise.
But right now, in this moment, in this bed with Levi’s arms around me and his heartbeat steady under my ear …
Right now, I just breathe.
His hand keeps moving through my hair. Slow. Patient.
“Stay,” I whisper. Not a question. Not quite a command.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The words settle into me. True in a way that should terrify me but doesn’t.
The silence isn’t empty anymore. It’s full of his breathing, his heartbeat, the rustle of cheap sheets, the rattle of the ancient air conditioner.
For the first time in longer than I can remember, the quiet isn’t something to be filled or fled.
It’s just—peace.
I sleep.