“No. But his visit hurt more than the black eye.”
I pulled back to look into his eyes. “Why? He told everyone what you’ve done for us. He’s trying to get people on your side.”
Lucas’s mouth lifted in a bitter smirk. “Yes, he was very clear on what he’s done and how grateful I should be for it.”
Huh? What did that mean? Was I missing something?
Lucas reached for me, his hand soft as it drifted over my cheek. “If I’d known what I was leading you into, I never would have agreed to come here.”
I leaned closer. “What do you mean?”
“Harrison says your Prime Delegate wants me dead, Sophia. She never wanted anyone to know the Defiance deigned to work with me. Uncle Theo took a gigantic risk in outing me.” His thumb stroked down my throat. “I suppose I should call you my savior. If he hadn’t been so scared Williams would kill both of us to keep her secret, he would have handed me over to the wolves right away.” He paused at the notch between my collarbones to write his name.
My hands curled around the bars. “What? What are you even saying, Lucas? Theo is trying to protect you.”
“Yeah, foryou. Williams didn’t just want me dead, Sophia. Harrison suspects she planned to dispose of you, too. She was going to make it like the entire thing never happened, like the Defiance won without any help. Keep her hands nice and clean.” He huffed out a humorless laugh. “We left a den of Blood Colonels just to walk hand-in-hand straight into a snake pit.”
My breath whooshed out of me. “That can’t be true. She—she wouldn’t do that.”
He pushed away from the bars, his bright eyes staring into mine with pity. “Come on, Sophia. You know better than anyone what the Defiance is willing to sacrifice to get what it wants. The NAO may be corrupt, but at least they’re honest in their evil.”
I glanced at Isaac, but he was looking away from us, his lips pursed.
“Harrison’s trying to keep you alive,” Lucas said. “Outing me as a good guy is his Hail Mary, but it won’t work.”
“It will! Once people understand?—”
“No, Sophia. No one is ever going to look at me and see a good guy. And by aligning yourself with me, you’ve dragged yourself straight into the firing line.”
“No, that’s—that’s not?—”
Lucas reached through the bars with one arm—the arm without a bullet hole—and gripped my neck. “I didn’t risk everything getting you out just to watch your own people slaughter you. You will go back upstairs and tell them I tricked you, that I’m just as evil as they think I am. Convince them you’re not on my side. It’s the only chance you have to keep from going down with me.”
My mouth hung open as I took in his sincere request, spoken through lips bloodied bymypeople. “You want me to…forsake you?”
“I want you to protect yourself, Sophia, like you promised.Please.”
“I’d rather die.”
His hand fell away from me, and he sighed, defeated. “You will. If you keep on this path with me, they’ll kill you for walking by my side. Why are you so determined to die with me?”
“I-I’m not,” I said, hitching over tears I hadn’t even realized had fallen. “I’m determined for you to live with me.”
Silence descended, and we stared deep into each other’s eyes. His bruised face was sliced by the shadows of the bars between us, the iron far stronger and more enduring than the promises he’d whispered in stolen moments under piles of blankets or scribbled in a note buried deep in my heart.
Grief is like snow…
That resolution on his face… He still fully planned to die. He’d walk gladly into his fate so long as I was safe when he did it.
My voice hitched. “Why don’t you want to live?”
“I would live for you if I could,” he whispered. “But this is what I deserve, sweetheart. Never forget that.”
The tears came in earnest as that grief-snow drifted around me, icing me to something barely alive. “You can’t die,” I said with a sob. “I need you.”
“The part of you that’s me will never die, Sophia,” he said, voice soft and coaxing as he caught the bars in his bruised fists.
Air snagged in my throat. “I won’t do this without you, Lucas. What’s the point of this without you?”
