"There's something else," Nate continues. "Finch asked specifically about your medical knowledge, your familiarity with surgical techniques. He wanted to know if you'd ever expressed interest in anatomy, forensic pathology, the kind of expertise that might be relevant to his current case."
The building profile becomes clearer with each detail. Finch suspects that Kent Shepherd isn't just connected to Dr. Lila North professionally—he suspects that Kent Shepherd might be the copycat killer using historical Carver methods. That my relationship with Lila represents collaboration rather than obstruction, partnership in murder rather than protection from investigation.
He's wrong about the current murders, but he's not wrong about my capacity for violence or my intimate knowledge of the techniques being used.
"The smart thing to do would be to disappear," I say, though the words taste like ash in my mouth. "Today. Before he gets warrants or brings me in for questioning."
"Already anticipated that." I hear Nate moving around his office, the sound of files being opened and papers shuffling. "I've got clean documentation ready, cash reserves, transportation arranged. You can be three states away by nightfall."
The escape plan I've been preparing for years, finally activated. Clean papers, untraceable resources, the ability to vanish into anonymity before law enforcement can connect Kent Shepherd to a lifetime of systematic violence.
Everything I need to save myself.
Everything that requires abandoning Lila when she needs me most.
"What about Dr. North?" Nate asks, reading the silence correctly. "Finch made it clear she's the primary focus of his investigation now. Whatever protection you think you're providing her, it's making things worse."
The observation hits exactly where he intends it, because he's not wrong. My presence in Lila's life has made her a target, painted a bullseye on someone who should be protected ratherthan prosecuted. Every moment I stay increases the evidence against her, provides more documentation of our connection.
But leaving would destroy her differently. Not through legal consequences, but through abandonment at the moment when she most needs someone who understands the weight of carrying deadly secrets.
Through proving that I haven't changed, that I'm still the man who walks away when staying gets complicated.
"I'm not running," I tell Nate, surprised by the certainty in my voice. "Not this time."
"Kent—"
"She's not just collateral damage in this. She's the target. Someone's been orchestrating this entire situation to force us back together, to use our connection against us both." I move away from the window, pacing Lila's living room while my mind processes possibilities. "Running protects me, but it leaves her completely exposed. It isn’t the smart thing if I lose her. There’s no fucking point without her."
"Then bring her with you. New identities for both of you, clean start somewhere the past can't follow."
The suggestion sits heavy with possibility, because it's exactly what Lila needs. Distance from Dr. Shaw's psychological experiment, protection from legal consequences she doesn't deserve, the chance to build something together without the weight of historical violence.
But it also means asking her to give up everything she's built, everything she's become. Dr. Lila North isn't just a professional identity—she's armor against a world that destroyed Delilah Jenkins. Asking her to abandon that protection, to trust me enough to become someone else entirely, feels like another kind of violence.
"I'll discuss it with her," I say finally. "But the choice has to be hers."
"Make it soon. Finch struck me as the persistent type, and he's got enough evidence to make life very difficult for both of you if you don't get ahead of this."
The call ends, leaving me alone with the sound of Lila's steady breathing from the bedroom and the growing certainty that time is running out faster than I'd calculated. Shaw's game is entering its final phase, the net is tightening, and soon we'll be forced to choose between legal consequences and life as fugitives.
Either way, the careful lives we've built are about to be destroyed.
I return to the bedroom, noting how Lila has shifted position again, reaching for my side of the bed even in sleep. She's still exhausted, still processing the devastation of Casey's death and the collapse of her professional world. When she wakes up, I'll have to tell her that the situation is worse than we thought.
That Finch has photographic evidence of our connection, that Shaw has been documenting our relationship, that her protection of me has made her the primary suspect in a murder investigation.
That everything she's worked to build is about to be taken away, and this time it won't be through choice or abandonment, but through systematic destruction by someone who sees us both as test subjects in an academic experiment.
But for now, I let her sleep. Let her rest while she can, before the next phase of this psychological warfare begins.
Because when Lila North wakes up, it might be for the last time. Tomorrow, she might have to become someone elseentirely if we're going to survive what Shaw has planned for us both.
***
Lila wakes up like a predator sensing danger, immediately alert despite the exhaustion that kept her unconscious for six hours. Her green eyes find mine across the room where I'm sitting in her armchair, fully dressed, watching the news coverage of Casey's murder play out on muted television.
"How bad?" she asks, not bothering with morning pleasantries. Because she can read the tension in my posture, can see from my expression that the situation has deteriorated while she slept.
