Coordinates. 47.6062, -122.3321. David Thornton. Rebecca Vance. KILO-SEVEN-TANGO. November 3rd. All of it rattling around in her skull, data without meaning, puzzle pieces without a picture. She’d been Randall’s filing cabinet. His human hard drive. She’d escaped, but the data had come with her.
His face surfaced next. That cold, professional smile. The way he’d looked at her arms before the first cut, like he was planning a garden.These will scar, Miss Reece.
The box. Metal walls pressing in.
She curled onto her side and wrapped her arms around herself. The bandages pulled against her skin. The silence pressed in. Her body kept waiting for the latch to open, for the work to start again, for the rules to reassert themselves.
But there was no latch here. Just a door she could open whenever she wanted and a man whose name she’d learned was Lincoln and a kind of freedom that felt both like safety and like falling.
She closed her eyes and let herself fall.
Tomorrow, she would have to figure out how to land.
Chapter 8
Three weeks ago:
Mercury: How do you know when you’ve said the wrong thing?
Binary: Usually, someone tells me. Directly or indirectly.
Mercury: That sounds exhausting.
Binary: It was. My cousins created a system. “Inside voice” means I’ve crossed a line.
Mercury: That’s actually kind of brilliant.
Binary: It’s efficient. I appreciate efficiency.
Mercury: Do you ever wish you didn’t need the system?
Binary: No. I wish more people came with user manuals. You’re the closest I’ve found.
Bear was the last one out the door.
Lincoln stood in the entryway of his house, watching his cousin and the others load gear into their trucks. The sky had lightened to pale gray while they’d been inside—dawn creeping in without permission, the way it always did. He’dlost track of time somewhere between the warehouse and now.
“You sure you don’t want one of us to stay?” Bear paused at the driver’s side of his truck, keys in hand. “Derek can crash here. Or I can send Joy a text, tell her?—”
“I’m sure.”
“Linc.” Bear’s voice shifted into something more serious. “That woman up there has been through hell. You shouldn’t have to handle this alone.”
“I won’t be alone. She’s here.”
Bear and Derek exchanged a look—the kind of look they’d been exchanging over Lincoln’s head since they were children. He’d learned to recognize it even if he couldn’t always decode it. This one meant something likehe’s not wrong, but he’s also missing the point.
“Okay. Call if you need anything or if…your friendneeds anything,” Derek said from his own truck. “I mean it. Middle of the night, whatever. Even if it’s just because she’s tired of your ugly mug.”
“I will.”
He wouldn’t, not unless it was an absolute emergency. They all knew it. But the offer mattered in ways Lincoln didn’t have words for, so he filed it away with all the other things his family had done for him that he’d never be able to repay.
Theo lifted a hand in a wave as he climbed into his vehicle. “Take care of her, Linc. Be gentle.”
Gentle. Right. Of course. He hadn’t actually thought of that. “That’s the plan.”
Bear still hadn’t moved. His eyes searched Lincoln’s face for something—some sign of distress, some crack in the façade that would justify staying. Lincoln kept his expression neutral, which wasn’t difficult. Neutral was his default setting.
