"That's standard," Atlas says. "Doesn't mean—"
"I know what it means."
Twenty-five minutes. The feed shakes again. I realize the guy filming is nervous too. His hand isn't steady. The image drifts left, corrects, drifts.
I think about Max in a police station somewhere south of here. Sitting in a chair. Telling a stranger what happened in that building. Every detail. The things he told me in the dark with his face against my neck. The things he hasn't told anyone. He's saying them out loud, right now, in a room he walked into on purpose, so that what we're watching on this phone screen could happen.
Thirty minutes. Atlas's phone buzzes again.
"They've reached the sublevel."
Zero's jaw jumps.
Thirty-five. Forty. The longest forty minutes of my life, and I spent two days in that building, and I spent six hours pacing a hallway waiting for Max to come home, and none of it was as long as watching a shaky phone feed of a concrete building and waiting for the door to open.
Then the door opens.
The first victim comes out in a blanket. Small. Blinking. Shielding their eyes from the daylight with one hand while an officer guides them by the elbow. Then another. Then two more together, leaning on each other. Then one on a stretcher—conscious, turning their head away from the sun.
Nine names on a list I've been reading for months.
Nine people I've been tracking and planning for and losing sleep over, nine people Max pressed his face into my collarbone about and saidI think about the others, the ones we left, all the time—and they're coming out. Into daylight. Into the parking lot. Into the world that forgot about them.
Zero uncrosses his arms. One hand comes up to his mouth.
Atlas picks up his phone. His hand is steady. His eyes are not.
"Kline?" I ask.
"On the run. His two lieutenants were picked up an hour ago. It's a matter of time." Atlas sets the phone down. Looks at me. Looks at Zero. "Max did this. Max and Wren. Two victim statements. Hwang had enough for the warrant by ten this morning."
The room is quiet.
Max did this.
The boy who couldn't say I love you out loud walked into a government building and told strangers every detail of the worst thing that ever happened to him. His designation. His name.Everything. Because nine people were stuck in that building and he was the only one who could get them out.
I press my hand against my back pocket. Against the letter.
I've got you too.
Yeah, baby. You do.
∞∞∞
We still can't reach him.
Four more calls.Voicemail. The bond is still tugging and pulling and hurting and worrying and I can barely breathe anymore.
The sun went down an hour ago. The relief of the raid hasn't lasted. The nine omegas are out safe. Kline is running, all his underlings arrested or running too. But Max is somewhere in the city and Margot is somewhere else and every hour that passes is an hour she could be putting him on a plane.
I can’t fucking take it anymore.
None of us can.
Atlas says it first.
"Margot took him somewhere early this morning. A hotel, most likely. If she used a card, we can find it."
