Page 68 of Resurgent

Lin's mouth twitches. "Because he’s Reyes."

Of course. Just Matt being Matt.

Halden taps the report. "He recognized the secondary route and pushed through the western corridor instead. His partner followed. They reach the handoff point with approximately one hundred and eighty seconds to spare."

I groan, but Annalise clearly fights back a proud smile. "Gods, he’s going to be unbearable about this."

"Very," Halden agrees, surprising me that he’s showing any true emotion.

"Bets on how long it takes for him to try to kill me?" I joke. It's the wrong response. I know it immediately when both Halden and Lin look at me, but Annalise says nothing, simply smiling and waiting.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing," Lin says quickly, which definitely means something.

The debrief continues for nearly an hour.

We go over every movement, every communication, every point where the operation could have gone better. Halden questions our choices while Lin pushes us on contingencies. We discuss the unknown recipient and what the failed delay reveals about the courier's habits.

By the end, my brain hurts, but I've learned something else: Annalise is good.

Not just good for someone who's been away from classes, but really good.

She noticed things I missed. She anticipated questions I never thought of. She remembered tiny details from surveillance that I'd completely forgotten. And most shockingly, she never once seemed intimidated by Halden.

I'm beginning to understand why my mother is so impressed.

When we finally leave the briefing room, Annalise exhales, "Well."

I glance at her. "Well?"

"We technically failed."

"We delayed them by nearly two hours."

"And they still made the drop."

"Three minutes before we wanted them to."

"Exactly."

I smile. "You're a glass-half-empty kind of person, aren't you?"

She shoots me a look. "I'm realistic."

"That's what pessimists say."

"I'm not a pessimist."

"You're currently arguing that succeeding at ninety-nine percent of a mission is failing."

She considers that. "And yet, the one percent was all it took to lose.”

I smile wide and wait.

“Okay, fine. Maybe I'm a little pessimistic,” she laughs, elbowing me gently as we walk toward the barracks together.

For a few minutes, neither of us speaks.