“I’m never lying, Sophia. For fuck’s sake!”
Curled into myself, I laughed until I couldn’t breathe. “All this time, I could have gone for your knee?”
He braced a hand against his eyes. “Can we just go over the plan one more time?”
“Sure,” I said, still laughing.
We moved to the kitchen and settled at the table. He reiterated the finalized strategy he’d tailored with Theo for the prisoner transfer, the one they’d edited through me for weeks. Once finished, he took a deep breath. “I’d really like this to go well.”
“Me too.”
His hand covered mine where it lay on the table, and my gaze lingered on the gold band. “If it doesn’t, I don’t want you to watch it.”
I glanced at him, puzzled. “Watch…it?”
“The execution. Please don’t watch it.”
A pulse woke in my temple. Most of the time, his face was a curtain hiding everything inside, but the suppression of his emotions tonight, the pained little notch between his eyebrows—they struck like an icepick into my chest. I’d begun to fantasize about a way for him to defect, to get away from all of this, but where could he go? Besides, he had some goal in his head, something he was working toward that would repay his sister’s maltreatment. Lucas called me stubborn, but I wasn’t the only one. No amount of begging him to stop would change his mind.
“I’ve seen you do it before,” I said.
His mouth tensed, and he didn’t look at me. “Just… Please, Sophia?”
Swallowing, I nodded.
“Promise me.”
“I promise. I won’t watch.”
When it came time to leave, he touched my throat, his thumb brushing my jaw in a random pattern. My body responded to that small caress as if it were something far more intimate. Tingles spread down my chest and arms, and I fought the urge to lean closer. We hadn’t broached the subject of the night he handcuffed me to the bed—the night he’d looked at me like I was all that mattered. Maybe I’d made it all up in my head.
“Next week?” I said.
His finger drew a shape over my pulse. “Next week.”
20
And Then You
Persons taking no active part in the hostilities… shall in all circumstances be treated humanely…
—GENEVA CONVENTION (III), ARTICLE 3
Itried not to think about Lucas when the soldiers left a couple of days later. Devon and I held hands while he fretted for Isaac. He didn’t know I was fretting too. I nearly cried when the first freed prisoners arrived wearing ragged clothes, dirt caked in their creases and under their fingernails. They came in waves, shaking and weak, shuffling their feet, eyes downcast.
Pasting on a smile, I helped distribute small portions of food. I treated and dressed raw wounds from lashes. I organized a shower system so they could each wash themselves in private.
One girl stopped me as I cleansed a festering sore on her leg, laying a bony hand over mine. I glanced up to find tears sparkling in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Shame slithered through my chest, weighing me down. I didn’t want to be thanked for things that shouldn’t need to bedone in the first place. Still, I smiled and nodded, then returned to my work.
When Theo entered headquarters, dark circles ringed his eyes.
I snuck up on him. “Did his plan work?”
Theo tilted his head back and forth, wishy-washy. “I had to modify it. We left some prisoners behind.”
