“Five,” I confirm.“We’ve never found a body.We’ve never stopped looking.The Accord was born inside that vow.”
She nods once, absorbing, not pitying.Her thumb smooths the jelly stain like she can press time back into place.Her fingers tighten over my knuckles.“I hate that you never got to choose,” she says quietly.“I hate that you were made into a weapon.”
“I did choose, darling.No one put the knife in my hand that first time.I chose to carve the life out of my father’s throat.Everything after that was Leven making sure we survived and stayed powerful enough no one could do that to us again.”
“But no one else does what you do.”
“No,” I kiss her cheek because I need a breath.“I made a pact with Leven the night I killed my father.He’d already been avenging Mom and Auntie for two years then.I told him I’d be what he needed, would become theMachine,so my brothers wouldn’t have to.Ever.”
She kisses each letter on my knuckles.“Make a new pact.With me.When the darkness tries to eat you, hand some to me.Don’t carry it alone.Don’t disappear.”
“Deal,” I say.“I owe you one last truth.”I take her hand, press her palm flat to my sternum, and tap three, five, seven against my heart.
“I married you because I can’t let you be used against me.Not because of courtrooms.I don’t give a fuck about that.If you ever decided to testify, to turn on me, I’d drive you there myself and wait in the hall.”My jaw flexes.“But what you don’t realize, what I didn’t realize fully until I thought I’d lost you, is that you cut me off at the knees, Lindy.This was never about leashing you.It’s about leverage.Every enemy I’ve ever made will figure that out.It’s a suicide mission to take you from me, but some will try.My name will protect you from most, but not all.”
My thumb strokes the inside of her wrist, gentle where the plastic burned.“I have to teach you how to survive me.Survive what follows me.Make you dangerous enough that even the suicidal ones think twice.”I steady my breath.“And also, I will never be done wanting you.You, my Lindy darling, are my every thought, my every breath.That will never change.All of that is true at once.”
“Okay.”She shifts closer, knee pressed to my thigh.“Then teach me to survive you.And the world that comes with you.”
I bracket her hips between my hands, bring my forehead to hers.“Training won’t be kind.I’ll gag you so you learn to breathe through panic.Tie you so you learn the angles of escape.Put you in the dark so your brain stops lying to you.I will push—” I kiss her brow, a promise stamped in skin “—and I will pull you back.Every time.”
“I owe you a truth too,” she says.
“If you haven’t guessed by now, I know everything about you Lindy.”There’s so much I know about her, so much Adrian has fed me that I can’t imagine her saying anything surprising.My mind runs a fast audit anyway.Is she about to say she’s leaving?No, she wouldn’t, not now.Did Adrian miss something?Doubtful.Is there anything she could say that would change what I feel?Maybe what Idonext.Maybe who I have to be for her.But no, not how I feel.
“You don’t know this.”
“Say it.”
“I’m going to tell you a thing that sounds impossible, and you can’t fix it for me, Cassius.”
“Whatever it is, darling, we’ll be okay.”
“Have you ever felt a room tilt?”she asks.“No one walks in, but the air changes.Mine do that all the time because someonehaswalked in.”
“Go on,” I say.My thumb taps my knife to keep from reaching for her.
“This isn’t a metaphor.”She twists her ring three times before making herself stop.“The air literally has weight for me, voices, shapes who follow me.They follow you.”
My jaw sets.“You hallucinate?”She’s gotta be going somewhere clinical with this, right?I just have to give her space to talk this out.
“No.”She doesn’t blink.“I experience people after they’re gone.They crowd rooms.They’re loud around you.The world has always had an extra layer for me.”
I breathe in deep through my nose.“How long?”
“I don’t remember a time in my life without them.They’re almost always around,” she continues.“I’m so used to it that sometimes I don’t even notice them unless I purposely check for them.You’d recognize some of them.”
I flinch.Actually fucking flinch.I don’t think I’ve ever had a physical reaction tied to fear in my life until right now.My hands curl, then flatten.“And around me, it’s worse.”
She nods.
I feel like I’m drowning.My ears plug up so I can barely hear what she’s saying about the others she sees.She’s describing people I’ve killed.Wyatt she knew about, obviously, but the others, I’ve never talked about them with her.How would she know them?
“I didn’t tell you,” she keeps rambling, “because I’m terrified that you’d think I’m crazy or lying or trying to scam you or something and I’m not.”
“Okay,” I say, even, because that’s all I can afford right now.
She wets her lips.“There’s more.”She doesn’t look away.“When someone is truly gone, there’s a heaviness.An absence with its own taste.It feels different in my head.I’ve never felt that for London.”She swallows.“I think she’s alive,” she says, voice low.“And—” a breath “—the name you said earlier.Gideon.”Her eyes search mine.“The man you talked about and the one I see, I think they’re the same man.He told me to tell Leven to keep looking for London.”
