Her jaw tensed, just a little. “The only thing I did was not die.” She shifted on the step, her skirt catching on a splinter. “And testify. Which was mostly just telling the truth.”
I let the quiet come back. The sky above us bruised into indigo, the cicadas swapping shifts with the crickets. I didn’t want to ask her the next question, but I had to. “Do you regret it?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached into her jacket and pulled out a letter, the seal broken, the paper worn soft at the corners. She handed it to me, the way you hand someone a live round. “Read it.”
The signature at the bottom caught the last of the light: U.S. Department of Energy, with the kind of subtext that could get a man’s teeth broken. I read the first line, then the middle, then the last. When I finished, I stared at the paper a while longer, trying to process the data.
“You’re cleared,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
She nodded. “Not just cleared. They doubled my budget. And…” She trailed off, watching the light fade behind the ridgeline. “And I get a security detail.”
I grunted. “Congratulations. You’re officially a high-value asset.”
She laughed, but it was a hollow sound, the kind you make to keep from crying. “They’re still calling it a ‘personnel retention incentive.’ I’m supposed to keep doing the work, only now I have to answer every email, every phone call, as if someone’s bored handler in Virginia is reading it.” She took back the letter, folded it precisely, then tucked it into her shirt pocket. “They finally recognize the importance of protecting my work from foreign interests.”
The way she said it, I heard both the pride and the contempt. The old Seraphina would have left it at that. But she looked at me, and her face was wide open for the first time since I’d met her. “It means I get to keep you, too.”
I didn’t know what to do with that. My left hand twitched on the railing, knuckles shiny from where the skin hadn’t yet come back. “I never wanted to be protected,” I said. “It’s not my nature.”
“Neither is following orders,” she replied. “But here we are.”
We watched the dark flood in. A lone headlight stitched the highway below, then vanished behind the cutbank. I could feel the world getting colder, both in temperature and intent.
She nudged me, gentle. “I saw what you did at the station. With the Russian. With Damron. You could have run. Instead, you stayed until the end.” She bit her lip, thoughtful. “That’s not how your stories usually end.”
I shrugged, feeling the old ache in my shoulder. “Maybe I’m rewriting the script.”
She smiled, and this time it was almost real. “Or maybe you’re just tired of dying for everyone else.”
The porch boards groaned under my boots as I stood. I didn’t want to say the next thing, but I owed her the truth. “They’ll never stop coming for us. Not really. As long as the club runs, as long as your work matters… there’s always going to be another angle. Another predator.”
She looked past me, into the void. “I know.”
“I don’t want you to regret this.”
Her eyes came back to me, hard as flint. “I regret nothing.”
We let it hang. I tossed the unlit cigarette onto the dirt. Seraphina watched it spiral down, then reached for my hand, tracing the new scar with her thumb. “Does it hurt?”
“Always.”
She traced the line a second time, slower. “Good,” she said. “It means you’re still alive.”
I almost kissed her, but the moment was too raw for it. Instead, we sat side by side, watching the headlights come and go, each one a threat or a promise, never both.
“I have to go home,” she said at last. “There’s a site visit in the morning. Some DHS committee.” She made a face. “They’ll probably ask for a tour of the damage. They always do.”
I nodded. “You want company?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “Not yet. But maybe tonight, after.”
“Call me,” I said, and meant it.
She smiled, stood, then started for the lot. Her Civic waited at the edge of the gravel, the only import in a sea of battered American iron. I watched her go, the tight lines of her back, the way she kept her hands visible, as if expecting to be watched. She got in, started the engine, and let it idle for a moment before easing onto the drive.
The tail lights glowed a sickly red as they vanished into the trees.
I sat on the porch until the cold set in. The club was dead quiet now, the only sounds the distant bark of Augustine’s dog and the faint, metallic clink of Damron cleaning up the armory. The world was between cycles, not quite dead, not quite reborn.
