He grunted. “Nobody’s expendable. They just think you are.”
A silence grew, slow and ugly. My hand shook, barely, so I set the martini down and let both hands settle flat on the sticky Formica. “They know where I live, and they know my patterns. That’s why I tried to vanish after the first attack. Didn’t work. They followed me to the canyon, and when that failed, they changed tactics. The only reason I’m alive is because you interrupted their timetable.”
I caught a flicker in his eyes—a hint of something like regret, or at least professional curiosity. “So what’s the play?” he asked. “Go to the Feds and hope they’re not already bought? Run?”
“I don’t run well,” I said. “Besides, there’s nowhere to run. The Lab has a security plan, but it’s a fiction. I saw the memo. They’re more concerned about data loss than human casualties.”
He considered this, tapping a blunt finger against his whiskey glass in a rhythm I couldn’t parse. “You want protection. Or you want to bait them into making a mistake.”
“I want both. But I need to know which side you’re on.”
He showed teeth, but it wasn’t a smile. “Lady, I don’t have a side. I just don’t like people taking shots at me in my own zip code.”
I almost laughed. The thing about growing up with a scientist’s brain and a dog’s nervous system is you can never fully believe in altruism. Every kindness is just another vector for future pain.
The bar had filled in behind us, a slow accretion of drunks, insomniacs, and the kind of men who pretended to ignore but never missed a detail. I scanned the room and feltmy own paranoia reflected in the blank stares and too-quiet conversations. Every booth was its own closed system, radiating potential violence.
I reached for my purse and slid across a thumb drive, palmed in a napkin so casual it could have been a tip. “That’s a decoy net. I burned it myself. If you get a contact from anyone about Blue Spirit, hand them this and nothing else.”
He weighed the drive in his hand, turning it over like a bullet he didn’t want to waste. “You trust me?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “But I trust the part of you that likes to break things more than the part of them that likes to own things.”
He set the drive on the table and laid his hand over it, hiding it from the world. “Anything else I should know?”
I could have told him about the other Russians, the ones who watched from the food co-op or the post office, their shoes too new, their rental cars never parked overnight. I could have told him about the phone call last night, the heavy silence on the line, the sense that someone was listening to the sound of me breathing. Instead, I said, “You’ll see them before I do.”
The waitress reappeared, eyes glazed. “Another round?” she asked, already sure of the answer.
I shook my head, and Nitro did the same.
He pocketed the drive and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “If they make another play, it won’t be clean. You need somewhere to hole up, you call this number.” He slid a business card across—just a burner, no name, only a red scythe logo and ten digits. “Don’t text, just call. I answer, or someone meaner than me will.”
I ran my thumb over the edge. “And if I’m already dead?”
“Then make sure you take at least two of them with you. That’s the club standard.”
He said it with the finality of a closing door.
I rose, not because I wanted to leave, but because staying was impossible. The booth was suddenly a trap, the air inside it too thick for human lungs. Nitro watched me stand, then followed, both of us moving with the precision of people who’ve been shot at enough times to learn that nothing is ever over.
Outside, the night was colder, the stars distant and contemptuous.
I was three feet from the Honda when a hand grabbed my shoulder from behind. I heard a grunt—maybe mine, maybe the man’s—and then the world pivoted. Nitro’s fist came down, not with the wildness of a street brawl, but the sharp, controlled arc of a butcher at work. The man’s face caved inward, nose flattening. He staggered back, spitting teeth and blood.
The second one reached for Nitro’s jacket. A gun flashed—a real one, not the imagined kind. I dropped to the ground, hard, as Nitro had commanded. The shot cracked, deafening. The window of a nearby car exploded, glass raining down in a kinetic glitter.
Nitro didn’t flinch. He stepped in, one hand on the gunman’s wrist, the other breaking his jaw with a palm heel. The gun dropped, and Nitro caught it before it hit the ground. He turned it, double-tapped the attacker in the kneecap, and the man dropped, howling.
I crawled to the car, got the door open, and slid inside, shaking so badly I could barely force the key into the ignition. Nitro scooped the fallen gun, then bent to eye level with me through the shattered glass.
“You good?” he said, the question all business.
I nodded, or tried to. My teeth chattered.
“Get home. Take side roads. Don’t answer the door for anyone until I call.” He wiped blood from his knuckles on the hem of his shirt, then tossed the gun into my passenger seat.
I started the engine, which coughed but caught, and drove. Every mile felt like a century, every streetlight a possible ambush. I checked the rearview with the twitchy desperation of a hunted animal, and every time I did, I saw only the empty road and the white sickle of the moon overhead.
