My heart bounced around my ribcage as I stared—then glared—into his face. “I’m not leaving you.”
He took my hand. “My cover is blown, and I have nowhere to go. I’m now an enemy to both sides. You stay with me, you die.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” I snapped.
He remained calm, which only stoked my ire. “We both knew this day was coming. It’s time to be brave and accept it.”
I gripped his hand. “You’re all I have left, Lucas, and I won’t lose you without a fight.”
“Youhavefought, sweetheart. You’ve fought and lost. This isn’t a debate.”
My muscles tensed at his supercilious tone. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
He sighed. “If you would just listen?—”
“I am!”
“You’renot. I’ve never been good for you, and now I’m putting you in danger.” He grabbed my shoulders almost as if he wanted to shake sense into me. “I just want you to be safe.”
“Then you shouldn’t have let me fall in love with you.”
That killed all semblance of his calm. “Let you?Let you?I don’tlet youdo anything. You do whatever the fuck you want to do whenever you want to do it.” He raked his fingers through his dark waves, his composure cracking. “You were just supposed to be a contact! You’ve fucked up every plan I ever had. You clawed your way in and won’t let go. Why can’t you see we’ve lost?”
“We haven’t lost til we’re dead.” I had nothing but him, and I’d fight for him until my dying breath. “You saved my life today. We haven’t lost yet.”
“Your stubbornness is going to get you killed.”
“No, it’s going to keep you alive.”
He scrubbed his face hard with his hands. “Please don’t do this. Please let me get you out. I can’t go back. I can’t go with you. Staying together will kill us both.”
“Then we die together, Lucas. There’s no life I want to live without you in it. You said I could ask you for anything. I’m asking you for this. All I want is you.”
Exhausted, desperate and grief-stricken, he squeezed my hand. “Please.Please, Sophia,” he whispered. “Please don’t do this. Just go.”
I met those aquamarine eyes, and tried to picture leaving him, letting him face death alone, but I just… I couldn’t do it. I leaned closer, holding his anguished gaze. “Would you?”
“What?”
“If our positions were reversed, would you leave me alone to go off and face a traitor’s death?”
“Yes.” The word was quick, breathless. Full of hope.
“Wow,” I said under my breath. “No wonder you don’t lie. You’re terrible at it.”
The amber flecks in his eyes glimmered, warming, but he straightened, and his expression became impassive again. When he spoke, his voice had cooled. “What’s your plan then? Do we hide? Do we run? Where do we go? Who would take us in? We have a car with half a tank of gas, a single loaded gun, and two armies chasing us. Tell me how we survive, Sophia.”
I turned toward him and took his face in my hands. “You just killed five Blood Colonels to save a Defiant. You’ve been feeding information to the Defiance for months. You’re the reason the tides of the war have shifted. If people on my side knew?—”
His eyes widened. “You’re kidding?—”
“I can take you to Theo, Lucas. He already knows you’ve turned. He’ll grant you clemency.”
I thought of the signed paper in my sleeping quarters back home, the one granting Lucas immunity from his crimes.
Then I thought of the doubt on Theo’s face when he’d given it to me.
If you two are smart, you’ll steer clear of Nia Williams.
