"Your intel has always been untraceable. "
"Untraceable to local law enforcement. But federal resources are different. NSA-level different." Ghost turned back to hisscreens. "I'm shoring up our digital infrastructure. But you should know that the next six months are going to be dangerous in ways that have nothing to do with men with guns."
Zain studied him. Ghost in profile, the sharp line of his jaw, the slight tremor in his hands that he hid by keeping them constantly in motion. The man was brilliant and broken and held together by code and caffeine and stubborn that looked, from certain angles, like strength and from others like a cry for help.
"You okay?" Zain asked. The same question he'd started asking Seth, and maybe the same question he should have been asking Ghost all along.
Ghost's typing paused. One second. Two. Then resumed.
"I'm functional," he said.
"That's not what I asked."
"It's what I can answer."
Zain nodded. He'd been where Ghost was, the place where functional was the ceiling, where okay was a theoretical concept that applied to other people, where the only honest answer tohow are you?wasI'm still here.
"If you need anything," Zain said. "Not for the op. For you."
Ghost's hands stilled again. He didn't turn around.
"I'll let you know," he said. And something in his voice, barely there, almost imperceptible, cracked.
Zain left. Closed the door behind him. Stood in the basement hallway and thought about the people in this house, every one of them broken, every one of them brilliant, every one of them holding on to what the world had tried to take away.
He thought about Seth upstairs. About the distance between wanting and having, and how the bridge between them looked more like a cliff every day.
He climbed the stairs. Seth's light was on, a thin line under the door. Zain stood in the hallway, hand raised to knock.
He didn't knock.
Same failure as the night before. Same locked jaw, same fist that wouldn't open. A man who could breach a warehouse and kill six guards couldn't cross three feet of hallway to say something honest to someone who mattered.
He lowered his hand. Went to his room. Lay in the dark and listened to Seth's footsteps on the other side of the wall. Pacing. Restless. Awake.
They were both awake. Three feet of drywall between them. Neither one moved.
CHAPTER 13
The almost-moment happened at two AM on a Tuesday.
They should have been used to it by now. The avoidance had been going on for, what? A week? Longer? Seth had lostcount. He counted everything. But the days of circling Zain had blurred into a continuous ache, a low-grade fever that he couldn't shake because the cure was the disease, and the disease was three inches away in the kitchen at two AM smelling like soap and sleep and the warmth of a body that had been in bed and was now, inexplicably, maddeningly, here.
The counter was cold against Seth's hip where he leaned. The kitchen window showed nothing, just black glass reflecting them back to themselves, two men in underwear and insomnia, standing closer than the kitchen required.
"You can't sleep either," Seth said. Not a question.
"No."
"How many nights?"
Zain's jaw tightened. The honest answer was probablyevery night since the mat,but Zain didn't do honest when honest meant admitting that someone had gotten inside his defenses. He did deflection. He did distance. He did cleaning weapons at three AM with the focused precision of a man who was very carefully not thinking about anything.
"Zain."
"What."
"Look at me."
