“I know you can.” He studies me. “I just… needed to see it for myself.”
I tilt my head. “You feel better now?”
“A little.”
“Good.” I nudge him with my hip. “Now we go back to stalking our stalker.”
He groans. “You’re insufferable.”
“You adore me.”
His gaze lingers on my face, my mouth, my messy hair.
“Yes,” he says simply. “I do.”
The words land in my chest like a small, bright bomb.
I swallow, suddenly more off-balance than any throw in the last half hour made me.
“Okay, well,” I say lightly, because that’s what I do when I’m in danger of combusting, “that’s enough emotional vulnerability for one training montage. Back to work, coach.”
We return to the table.
The data is waiting.
The threat is still real.
The bounty is still out there, with too many zeros and too many anonymous eyes attached.
But now, something else hums under my skin.
Not just fear.
Not just adrenaline.
Power.
We’re not just running.
We’re learning.
We’re adapting.
And sitting shoulder to shoulder with Knight—our knees bumping again, his fingers flying across keys, my mind spinning webs from strings of code—I realize something:
They might have put us on a list.
They might have painted targets on our backs.
They might think they’re the ones doing the hunting.
But they underestimated the girl with the bat.
And the man who’d burn the world to keep her breathing.
Bad idea.
For them.
