When the December executions arrived, Lucas was up to play hangman, and he turned silent in the days leading up to it.
Sitting at the kitchen table the night before, he stared blankly at the wall.
“Lucas?” I slid a hand over his shoulder, trying to spark some life into him.
His eyes lifted, face blank.
“What can I do?”
A slow breath expelled from his lungs. “I’m just so tired.”
My throat ached. Tears slipped from my eyes. I hugged him close.
As requested, I didn’t watch, but he came home haunted by darkness and jerked awake six times that night.
The sixth time, he squeezed me tight. “I thought I’d be dead by now. Why am I still doing this?”
“Because I need you. We all need you to help end this.” I kissed him hard and gripped him as if he could be ripped from my arms any second.
Because he could.
He’d backed himself into a deadly corner, and I sensed the ties that held us together fraying. He never said it, but a bleak and biting sense of hopelessness ate at him. No good options remained for him. Everything would hurt until the end.
At night he’d bolt upright and freeze, reaching until his hand closed around some piece of me.
“Shh,” I’d say. “I’m right here.”
And every time, his tourniquet-tight grip would tug me as close as possible. As the nights passed, his embrace grew so rigid it hurt, threaded with filaments of desperation and fear.
The new year had dawned before Theo presented me with a signed statement of Lucas’s absolution. Provided he continued to offer aid and didn’t undermine or hinder the Defiance, he was granted a pardon from war crimes.
“I’m only doing this for you, Sophia. Williams doesn’t know.” Theo pressed the document into my expectant hand. He didn’t let it go. “I love you, Soph. I hope you understand that. I never wanted any of this for you.” He released the paper.
I studied his brown eyes, the lines creasing his forehead. “Thank you for this, Theo. Can I trust it’s real?”
He sighed. “I’ll do what I can, but if you two are smart, you’ll steer clear of Nia Williams.”
I didn’t tell Lucas. Fancy piece of paper or no, if I stood between him and the Defiance, they’d slaughter me to reach him, and Lucas knew it.
When I wasn’t with Lucas, I kept busy in the hospital wing. After hearing my cover story, Zara had examined my leg, her gaze clouded in confusion over who had treated it. “It looks better than what I could have done,” she said. “Who did you say took care of you again?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “It was someone at Safe House Green.”
The notch on her brow only deepened, and she peered closer at my leg, then into my eyes. “Sophia.”
I flinched.
“You weren’t really at Safe House Green, were you?”
I swallowed and said nothing.
She nodded. “Please tell me you’re safe.”
“I’m safe,” I whispered. “It’s just…classified.”
At that, she released a sigh, and we returned to our shifts.
Devon asked repeatedly where I went every night. I finally took him aside to explain.
