Page 35 of You, Only You

"I know."

"We need to accelerate the timeline. Mendez. The surveillance window. Sooner is better."

I looked at Lindsey. She looked at me. Neither of us said what we were both thinking, which was that "sooner" meant more risk, less preparation, higher stakes.

"Do it," Lindsey said. Not to Bates. To me.

"Are you sure?"

"They wanted me out of the game. This is me staying in."

Bates looked between us again. Whatever he saw in our faces made him nod once.

"I'll make the arrangements. You two stay put tonight. I'll have a team on the door within the hour."

He left. The door closed. The room was quiet again.

"Stay?" she asked softly, her eyes already drifting, exhaustion finally winning the fight she'd been putting up. "Until I fall asleep. You don't have to stay all night. Just..."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Okay." Her voice was fading. "Good. Because neither am I." A pause. Then, barely audible: "You really ripped the door off."

"Go to sleep, Lindsey."

"It was impressive. I want you to know... I noticed."

She was asleep before I could respond.

I watched her breathe. Each rise and fall of her chest registered in my body like a physical thing, like her breathing was keeping time for both of us. The monitors beeped. The IV dripped. The hallway hummed with the ordinary business of a hospital at night.

My phone buzzed. I pulled it out with my free hand, the one that wasn't holding hers, because I was not letting go of the one that was holding hers.

A text from Bates:

Timeline? How fast can you move on Mendez?

I looked at Lindsey's sleeping face. The bruises darkening on her cheek. The bandage on her temple. The way her fingers, even in sleep, hadn't released mine.

They'd tried to take her out. And they'd failed. And now she was lying in a hospital bed with broken ribs, and she was still in, and she was still here, and she was still holding my hand.

As fast as necessary,I typed back.

They wanted to scare us off. It didn't work.

His response came quickly:

You sure she's up for this?

I looked at her again. At her face that was slightly focused even in her sleep. At the woman who'd told me "so could you" like it was the most obvious thing in the world, like the possibility of my death scared her as much as her own, like we were in this together and together meant both directions.

I'm sure.

I typed.

She's the strongest person I've ever met.

I hit send before I could second-guess the words, and then I stared at them on the screen for a long time, because they were true, and I hadn't meant to say them, and the fact that they'd come out so easily should have told me something.