Page 105 of Legacy Elite

Not this is what happens now. Not the briefing. Not the six-move plan.

"I don't know yet," I say.

"Then tell me when you do," Luke says.

Soren, from the doorway, says nothing at all — but he moves aside so Declan can get up, and when I glance at him he gives me one very small nod, and that's the whole of his contribution, and it's enough.

Ander hasn't moved from the window.

He's looking at me the way he looked at the card on my bed — completely still, working something out, and whatever it is, it isn't good news for him.

I know enough to understand this changes his situation. I don't know enough to understand how.

He catches me looking and turns his head away.

I get to the kitchen and Torres follows me.

"You okay?"

And this time I answer it.

"No."

He pulls me in, and I go, and I put my face into his shoulder and stop thinking about paper for the first time since ten o'clock.

"She was six," I say into his shirt.

"Yeah."

"Nobody knows her name. It isn't written down. They took her name off her before she was even—"

His arms tighten. "You're here because somebody didn't give up on a kid," he says. "That's what that is."

I stay there a bit longer.

When I come back out, Luke crosses the room and gathers me into his arms.

I go without thinking, pressing my face into his chest while his arms close around me hard enough that I can finally breathe properly.

His mouth brushes my ear.

"I want to keep you safe."

I pull back enough to look at him. "That's what you got from all that?"

"I haven't decided what else I got from all that yet."

Fair.

He pulls me back against him.

Sophia makes a noise from the couch.

I don't care even slightly.

"Better?"

"Marginally."