I shut my eyes. Andrei. The boy I couldn’t save. Then the other faces in the file rise.
If I leave, who speaks for them? Who stitches Boyd back together when he breaks?
“You’re freezing.” The voice comes from behind me, rough and warm.
I turn.
Boyd fills the doorway in sweatpants and a T-shirt, his arm in the sling. He looks ravaged, stubble shadowing his jaw, eyes hooded with exhaustion, and he moves gingerly, his torso rigid to guard the deep ache of the bruising. But he’s upright.
He steps out onto the deck, cradling a thick wool blanket.
He drapes it around my shoulders and draws me into his good side. His movements stay careful, sparing the tension ofthe deep fascia sutures in his arm, as he tucks me against his chest.
“What are you doing out here, Iris?”
“Thinking.”
“About your exit strategy?”
“Rook told me Hutch sets up a new life for me.”
“It’s the best play.” Boyd stiffens against me. His voice runs flat, devoid of emotion, like he’s reciting protocol. “Mercer is in the wind. The Consortium has reach. We can hide you in deep cover to start over.”
“Is that what you want?” I pull back, looking up at him.
“I want you safe. That was the mission. That was the deal.” He looks away, staring out at the mountains.
“The deal changed.”
“No, it didn’t.” He looks at me then. His gaze is tortured, amber burning with a desperate, self-sacrificing resolve. “Look at me. Look at this.” He gestures to his sling and the bruises on his face.
“I’m a weapon. That’s all I am. I break things. I kill people. I live in safe houses and crawl through mud. That isn’t a life. You’re a healer. You fix things. You don’t belong in the darkness.”
He steps back, putting distance between us. Nobility pushing me away.
“You saw me tonight.” He lowers his voice. “The truth of me. In that office. You saw what I did to those men. You saw the monster.”
“I don’t see a monster.” I step toward him. I let the blanket fall to the deck. I don’t need it. I have him. “I see a man who walked through fire to get to me. A man who took a bullet so I wouldn’t have to.”
I reach out. I place my hand on his chest, right over his heart. It beats hard and fast beneath my palm.
“You think you’re a monster because you possess violence. Violence is just a tool. You’re a scalpel. And sometimes you have to amputate to save the patient.”
“This isn’t surgery.” He covers my hand with his. “It’s murder.”
“Is it?” I think of the files. I think of the children trafficked like livestock. “Those men, Mercer, the Consortium, they’re a contagion. You’re the cure.” I step closer, crowding his space, forcing him to reckon with me.
“I can’t go back. I can’t go wherever Hutch wants to ship me. I can’t pretend I didn’t see those faces. I can’t pretend I don’t know that monsters are real.”
“Iris...”
“I don’t need a safe life.” My voice splinters with the weight of the truth. “I tried safe. Safe is a lie. Safe runs blind.” I grip his shirt. “I want a life that matters. I want to burn them down. And I want to do it with you.”
He stares at me. The resolve in his expression cracks. The shield he built around himself, the idea of himself as too damaged to be loved, too dangerous to be kept, shatters.
“You don’t know what you’re asking.” He pulls me flush against him. “If you stay, there’s no going back. You become a target. You become a ghost.”
“I know.”
