She settles back onto the cot. After a while, her breathing evens out, and I stand in the dark and run the problems through my head.
Hiding her works until it doesn’t. Viktor’s people are patient. The Syndicate’s aren’t, and they’ve got the roads and the sky. Every day behind that boulder, the walls get a little closer. A cave is still a cage, no matter who built it or why.
The danger hasn’t gone anywhere. It won’t. But I can’t want her free and keep her hidden at the same time. If she’s ever going to choose anything—me included—someone has to clear her name and get her sister out of the Syndicate’s hands.
That starts with Viktor. Face to face. My read against his file, my word on the table with everything it’s worth. He might take me standing up for what I’ve done. He might take more than that.
I’ve known this was coming. I’ve just been putting it off.
She sleeps. I stand with my back against cold stone, wanting her so hard it aches, and I let the want keep me company while I work out what I’ll say to a man who thinks I’ve turned against him.
Tomorrow, I start down the mountain.
Chapter 21
Decker
She’s still on the cot when I start lacing my boots, and I feel her come awake behind me.
“You’re dressed,” she says.
“I’m going down the mountain.” No point circling it. “To Viktor.”
The blanket goes still. When I turn, she’s sitting up, and her face has gone cold.
“Viktor thinks I’m the mole.”
“He does.”
“And you’re going to walk into his building after days of hiding me from him.” Her voice stays even. Her hands don’t. They’ve closed in the blanket, knuckles pale. “He could hold you. He could put a tracker on your truck and follow you back here.”
“He’ll do the right thing.”
I have to believe that.
“Decker—” She stops there. I watch her wrestle with the next part.Don’t gois sitting right there, and she won’t let it out. She’s spent months not asking anyone for anything. She’s not going to start by asking me to stay. “Why him? You said there were people outside Aurora.”
“There are. They’re slow. And getting him on our side gives us more to work with.” I cross to the cot and crouch so we’re level. “Viktor has the reach, and he has a reason to listen. Somebody used his organization to frame you. That makes it his problem too. I can work with that.”
“And if he doesn’t listen?”
“He’ll listen.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I know him.” I hold her eyes. “He’s hard, but he’s fair. If I put the truth in front of him, he’ll weigh it. That’s more than we’ll get anywhere else.”
She looks at me a long moment. Whatever she’s searching for, she must find enough of it, because her shoulders come down half an inch.
“Then tell me what you need,” she says.
“Your sister. The system they ran. Everything. Again.”
She nods, then goes through it, because we both know where it’s headed now. The drop point behind the hardware store. The photographs. The recording of Serenity’s voice. A woman on the phone, always the same one, never a name. The details she gave them.
“And the phone,” she says. “You’re taking it to him.”
“I am.”
