Page 46 of Bound

Cass is in the hallway, calling us to come eat before she takes it all for herself.

Rafe isn’t fooling me. He’s called a break to get everyone out of the room. He’s onto something.

Somewhere beyond Iceland, beyond Scotland, beyond New York, a line moves in the dark.

A door opens.

A dead credential waits to wake.

Carlos thinks he is calling us back to fire.

Let him.

This time, we are not walking into his story.

We are writing our own around it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Erin

The message arrives while Lucian is explaining to the entire war room why I am absolutely not going to Bachman Village and I’ll be moving to Cass and Ryan’s locations as soon as possible.

Which, I will not be.

Obviously.

Rafe stands at the head of the table, one hand braced against the wood, the other moving between feeds. Gregory is beside him, glasses low on his nose, his notepad already full of tiny diagrams.

Blaze leans against the wall, arms crossed, looking less violently bored than before his wife came.

Isobel sits at the far end of the table under guard, pale and quiet, her hands folded so tightly her knuckles are white.

And Lucian stands beside me like a storm. “You’re not going,” he says.

I say, “We haven’t even finished discussing the plan.”

“We do not need to finish discussing a plan that includes you walking into Carlos’s reach.”

“Lucian.”

“No.”

I look at Rafe. “Is there a version of this conversation where he becomes reasonable?”

Rafe does not look up from his tablet. “Historically, no.”

Blaze snorts. “I’ve seen brick walls with more flexibility.”

Lucian’s gaze cuts to him.

Blaze lifts both hands. “Emotionally supportive brick walls.”

Cass would love this.

Cass is not here.

That is the one good thing about today.