He reaches for medical tape, movements economical. His hands work with the same care he used setting that explosive—sure, practiced, deadly. But gentle now. So gentle it makes my chest tight with something that isn’t pain.
“There.” He smooths the last piece of tape, fingers lingering a heartbeat longer than necessary. Or am I imagining it? “That should help.”
He stands, putting distance between us, and I immediately miss his proximity. Miss the heat of him, the solid presence that makes me feel simultaneously safe and completely off-balance.
The silence stretches, tension thick enough to choke on. I need to break it before I do something catastrophically stupid. The USB drive is now in the pocket of my borrowed clothes. I feel for it through the fabric of the cargo pants, needing to know it’s safe.
“I need to check the drive,” I say quietly, the words scraping past my damaged throat. “Victor’s drive. See what he died protecting.”
“The drive?” he prompts.
The small device cost so many lives. “I need a computer. A laptop. To check the files.”
“There’s one in the bedroom.” He moves toward the hallway. “Secure system, encrypted connection.”
I follow him, trying not to notice the way he moves—controlled, purposeful, dangerous. The bedroom is as sparse as the rest of the safe house. A single bed, military corners. A desk with a laptop, closed and waiting.
“Non-traceable,” he says, powering it on.
Right. The drive. The reason we’re here. Not to obsess over being in a bedroom with him, or the way his presence fills the small space.
I set up at the small dining table, USB sliding into the port. The familiar world of data settles my nerves slightly. This I understand. This I can control.
Files bloom across my screen—spreadsheets, documents, chemical formulas. My fingers fly across the keys, organizing and cross-referencing. Silent work, the kind that used to drive Nathan crazy.
“Your silence is passive-aggressive.”
But Jackson doesn’t seem to mind the quiet. He moves through the apartment, checking windows, weapons, and exits. Each motion contains exactly the energy required, nothing wasted. I track him peripherally, cataloging the controlled power in every movement.
“Seventy-three confirmed deaths,” I say quietly.
“Excuse me?”
“Deaths. From Meridian’s drug trials.” I pull up the data and turn the screen toward him. “That’s what Victor died protecting. Evidence of seventy-three people killed during pharmaceutical trials for a drug called ML-273.”
Jackson moves closer, looking over my shoulder at the screen. His proximity makes my skin prickle, hyperaware ofevery inch between us. The heat of him reaches me through the borrowed clothes.
“They covered it up?”
I nod, pull up more data. Don’t trust my voice for extended explanation.
“Wait.” I highlight something. “They all had the same blood type. O-negative with rare RH factors. That’s?—”
“Specific.”
“More than specific. That’s less than 0.0001% of the population.” My mind races through possibilities. The data points align in my head, forming a shape I can recognize. “They weren’t random test subjects. They were selected.”
“Selected for what?”
I pull up Victor’s chemical analysis, the formulas making my breath catch. “Look at this.” The words come easier now, the data giving me something to focus on besides Jackson’s presence. “ML-273 isn’t meant to treat cancer. It’s designed to alter DNA methylation patterns in specific sequences.”
“English.”
His voice rumbles behind me, low and commanding. The same tone that ordered me silent in the alley, that made my body respond before my mind could process.
“It’s trying to activate dormant genetic code. Like—flipping switches in human DNA that have been turned off through evolution.” I force myself to focus on the screen. The numbers dance, rearranging themselves into a terrifying conclusion. “They’re not developing medicine. They’re developing modifications. Enhancements. The cancer patients were just test subjects to see if … Look. Buried in the metadata, I keep seeing this phrase.Obsidian Protocol.”
Jackson freezes. Not the stillness he wears like armor—this is sharper, deeper. Recognition.
