“After you’ve eaten.” He rose from the edge of the bed and returned to the kitchen to finish with her soup.
After ninety seconds in the microwave, he pulled out thecup, peeled off the lid, grabbed a spoon, and crossed to her. “Eat.”
“Would love to eat that oh-so-carefully prepared ramen, but–” She raised her bound hands. “Kind of tied up at the moment.”
He set down the cup and spoon before he dug into his pocket, pulling out a switchblade and snapping it open. “Don’t make me regret this.”
He sliced off the zip tie binding her and motioned to the soup.
“Okay, okay,” she said with a nod as she reached for it, taking a tentative sip of the broth off her spoon. “Mmm, you must have gone for the expensive stuff not the ninety-nine-cent package.”
“So, what is your deal, Raven? Even now…after everything we’ve been through…you still won’t show me your face. Why?”
“I have my reasons, Ava.”
She set the cup aside after slurping up a long noodle. “What are they?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he answered.
“A misunderstood man of mystery.” She bobbed her head as she searched her mind for a way to get him to admit something about his background. “Still…honestly, Raven, you have to trust me at some point, right? I mean, you shot Miranda for us. By the way, any idea how she is? She’s alive, I assume.”
“She is alive,” he answered.
“Okay, so…there we go…we just broke into a Board stronghold together. You shot someone to protect us. But you can’t trust us with your face?” She ate a little more of the soup as he stood silent before she set it aside.
“Okay, come on,” she said. “This is getting ridiculous. You want us to trust you, but you can’t trust us?”
A sigh escaped from Raven’s mask again, his chin bowing to touch his chest as his fingers curled into fists. “Ava…”
She glanced up at him. Was he breaking? Was he about to tell her more? She leaned slightly closer as she hung on his words. “Yes?”
“This situation is very complicated. And I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand.”
“What I don’t understand is hiding behind this mask. Do you know how much easier this would be if we could trust you? Honestly, every time we have to make a choice, it’ssohard to choose you.”
“What choices are you making?” he asked.
“Any choices,” she said with a shrug as she grabbed the cup of soup again. “Giving you the drive, trusting you to help us rescue Alex, not escaping from the creepy house of horrors you kept me in.”
His fingers curled into fists again. She eyed the tense posture. Maybe a different tactic would work.
With the soup set aside, she rose to stand. “Listen, Raven, you look a little…uptight. Maybe you should take a seat and relax.”
“Don’t patronize me,” he warned, wagging a finger at her.
“Okay…so…I have no idea what you want. You leave me roses, then when I’m nice to you, you don’t want that either.”
“I don’t want disingenuous attention designed to keep me off-balance and make me reveal a detail you can use to unmask me.”
“Just take off the mask, Raven. How bad can this be?” She heaved a sigh, shifting her weight. “Fine. Don’t take off the mask. Let’s just do what we have to do.”
Raven followed her as she sauntered over to monitors and grabbed the mouse. “Don’t–”
The monitors glowed to life as she glanced at him, taking the glass of water from his hands.
“Touch that,” he finished with a sigh before he grabbed her arm.
“Wait,” she said, yanking her arm from his grasp. “You’re supposed to decrypt in front of me, not drag me away from the computers.”
