My stomach turned. “So, you were watching.”
“I was aware,” he corrected. “You put yourself at risk, Seph.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, the movement instinctive. Defensive.
“It didn’t feel like a risk to me. I was perfectly safe.”
Elliot’s gaze softened — just slightly. Not enough to be comforting.
“I know you feel like that. And I understand. Holding a power like yours — it’s easy to believe danger no longer applies.”
I flushed at the comment, looking away.
“This compound exists because people like you are hunted, Seph,” he said. “Because sentiment gets people killed. Because good intentions don’t stop bullets.”
“I didn’t go there out of sentiment,” I said firmly. “I went because he knows things you don’t. Things about Marr. About Echo.”
That caught his attention.
His eyes sharpened. “What did he tell you?”
I hesitated.
“He told me Marr has a place. In Blackwater Point.”
Elliot exhaled slowly, turning back toward the window. For the first time since I’d entered the room, he looked tired.
“That place has been empty for years,” he said. “Off the grid.”
“So, you believe me,” I said.
“I believe Marr would choose somewhere like that to continue his experiments,” Elliot replied. “Yes.”
Relief flickered through me — brief, fragile.
“But” he continued, turning back to face me, “that doesn’t change the fact that you put yourself in danger without clearance. Without backup. Without considering what it would cost the people who would have to clean up the fallout.”
My jaw tightened. “I’m not a weapon you get to lock away until it’s convenient.”
“No,” he said immediately. “You’re not.”
That surprised me.
“But you are someone this organisation is responsible for,” he went on. “And responsibility means limits.”
“Whose?” I asked quietly. “Mine. Or yours.”
The question hung there between us.
Elliot studied me for a long moment, like he was seeing something new — or finally admitting he had been wrong about something old.
“Both,” he said at last.
I took a breath. “I want to go there. To Blackwater.”
“No.”
“You can’t stop me if I decide to go.”
