…. Well, yeah. That had been exactly what happened.
Nothing kept me here more than my own two legs. I wasn’t a prisoner. None of this was a punishment. I wasn’t doomed. I wasn’t trapped anymore. Iknewthat. Yetrememberingit proved surprisingly difficult.
And I hadn’t done myself any favors tonight.
“Can you,” I asked, suddenly feeling shaky even with the table. “Can I have…”
He looked where I pointed to stacked chairs against the wall and easily lifted the top chair from the closest stack and set it on the floor. He pushed it closer to me with his leg, still keeping a boundary between us and not getting too close.
“I guess I only made things harder,” I admitted as I sank down into the chair. “I pushed myself too hard.”
“You did go pretty far for a guy who’s only been here a week.”
“I figured I’d be fine, that I’d be able to do whatever it took in an emergency.”
“Do you think tonight was an emergency?” he wondered.
At the time, yes. Now… it was more complicated. Seeing an opportunity, my brain had switched into survival mode, so desperate to escape I hadn’t question who I ranfromor if I even needed to escape.
My journey really exhausted me since I hadn’t registered when or why I started sharing with him. I didn’t really know this man. I already said too much.
I had no idea what to make of Lysander Temple. He hadn’t done what I expected back in the alley, so he intrigued me. But he could read me too well.
Clean, calm, and quiet with an underlying strength in his lithe frame. His dark loose curls looked so soft yet his grey eyes were sharp. Nobody like him existed in this life or my old one. All the guards constantly sneered or scowled and all had obvious muscles so us captives were discouraged from bright ideas like escape or backtalk.
“Can I offer you some advice?” he asked.
Oh, now I understood how to respond to him: with extreme skepticism and annoyance.
"What makes you qualified? I doubt you’ve had enough time to read thewholefile about—oh. You’re him, aren’t you?”
He could just be a well-meaning busybody, but he tensed slightly at the words, and I knew I struck gold.
No wonder he read me so well. Lysander Temple already knew all the intimate ugly details of my case because he worked on it with Chase.
“You’re the other agent? Why didn’t any of us meet you before?"
"That’s a story for another time."
"Did you screw up?"
Given everybody else at the department currently hated him, the smart money said yes. There had to be a good reason they weren’t patting the guy on the back for helping to save 11 people, including yours truly.
He only shrugged, not completely admitting anything yet not denying the accusation either.
So the intrigue intensified. I’d already wondered about him before we met tonight, the mysterious unseen agent who helped rescue us and hadn’t taken any credit, not even stopping by to hear us say thanks.
“Okay,” I said, deciding hearing him out was easiest. “What’s your advice?”
“Get better.”
I rolled my eyes. “Brilliant.”
“If you get better, everybody wins,” he reasoned. “You most of all. They’ll let you walk out the front door during the daylight, it’s called being discharged. And if you never want to see any of your care team or us agents ever again, then at least we’ll know you won’t keel over in the street while on your foolish quest to do everything on your own."
"Hey!"
"Leaving before you’re well enough to be discharged means you’re taking chances with your well-being, possibly with your very survival.” Okay, maybe the foolish crack was fair when put like that. “If trusting us might kill you and going it alone might kill you, what do you have to lose bytryingthings our way and actually healing before you leave?"
