“Dying?” I ask with a faint grin of my own.
He shrugs. “The powers are pretty cool, I won’t lie. But, no. I meant you, Reese. No matter what happens, it was all worth it.”
I told him I’d follow him to the ends of the earth. I’d follow him to the afterlife too, only after killing whoever put him there. I don’t want that for him, but even I have to admit this is his fight too. Malcolm betrayed us both seven years ago. His own uncle. He deserves whatever vengeance looks like for him.
“I’m still sorry I brought you into this,” I tell him again, reaching out to take his chin between my finger and thumb. “But I don’t think I can say I regret it.”
He smiles, and despite everything happening around us, it’s easy. “Good.”
I lean forward and kiss him before dropping my hand and settling back again. “Alright. So we don’t attack Malcolm. Wetake everything out from under him first.”
“Exactly. We dismantle the Institute from the inside out, at least the part that gives him all his power. We break his control and erase everything. His data on his experiments, his tracking on possible Ascended. You take his people, and I’ll take his foundation.”
“And when he has nothing left…”
“We end him,” he finishes.
Our gazes remain locked, and we both smile.
It’s far from being a foolproof plan, at leastyet. We’ll have to talk to Baz and the others because we shouldn’t do this alone. There are a lot of pieces to put together and details to figure out. But it’s astart.
Just as I open my mouth to say as much, Cason’s stomach growls. Loud. He freezes, and I raise a brow.
“Hungry?”
“I just had a near-death experience,” he says defensively. “Combine that with getting my brains fucked out, can you blame me?”
“How about I make us some sandwiches?”
The look on his face is not quite horror; it’soffended. “Absolutely the fuck not.”
“You never complained before.”
“I was a hostage,” he shoots back. “That does not count as a positive dining experience. I haven’t been able to eat a fucking sandwich since.”
“They were good.”
“They weretraumatic.”
I tilt my head and ask, “Even if I put mustard on yours?”
He goes still, and his lips part on a breath. Then his expression shifts, something softer threading through the sarcasm. He blinks several times, then inhales slowly, shaking his head like he’s losing an argument with himself.
“Fine,” he mutters. “But if it triggers me, I’m holding you emotionally accountable.”
“That’s fair.”
“Five more minutes though.”
He settles back into the pillows, even closer to me, like gravity just pulls him here now. And this time, when I wrap my arms around him, I know I’ll never let go again.
Morning hits softer thanit has in years. No pounding heart, no rush of blood in my ears. Too many nightmares, and I grew accustomed to waking up like that nearly every morning.
This is different. Something pulls me gently from sleep, like I’m floating up into consciousness on a cloud. The bed beneath me is certainly soft. I wake tangled in sheets that don’t belong to me, in a room that definitely doesn’t belong to me, and for a moment, I fear I hallucinated the entire night.
But then I turn my head and see Reese asleep beside me, and my body relaxes back into the bed. I roll over slowly so I can watch him.
I accused him of being a creep for this very thing last night, but now I understand the appeal.
