He nods. “And now you’re on Helios’s watchlist.”
I feel the blood drain from my face.
“Jesus.”
“Not quite.”
My hands are shaking. “They’ve been in my system. My mirrors. My cams. I saw someone downstairs. I—” I shake my head. “I thought I was losing it.”
“You weren’t.”
“Good. Great. Because I really didn’t need a full-blown government conspiracytoday.”
Valtron steps closer, and despite everything, my breath catches.
He still smells the same.
Warm metal. Charcoal. That faint ozone scent from his skin that used to cling to my sheets.
I blink hard.
“You... you disappeared.”
“I had to.”
“You left.”
“Ihadto.”
The words fall between us like broken glass.
“I thought you were dead,” I whisper. “I mourned you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
I raise the baton again. “Say that again, I dare you.”
His jaw tenses, but he doesn’t move.
Silence swells between us. Dense. Buzzing with everything we haven’t said in three years.
Then he looks away, the motion surprisingly human.
“Look,” he says. “I’m not here to rehash the past. Right now, you’re in danger. You’re marked. Helios doesn’t hire amateurs. They’re bringing in bounty killers—licensed and black-market.”
I swallow hard. “And you think I’m supposed to just trust you? Let you… what? Move in? Babysit me until the heat dies down?”
He meets my eyes, and there’s a fire in them that hasn’t dimmed in all this time.
“I’m not here to babysit you. I’m here tokeep you breathing.”
My heart pounds against my ribs.
I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to throw something and demand to know why he vanished like a ghost. But right now, I want answers more.
“Fine,” I snap. “Talk.”
He steps forward again, and this time, I don’t back away.
