“Lincoln?” Sleep-blurred. Barely audible.
“I’m here.”
“I know.” She pressed closer. “That’s why I can sleep.”
She was out within seconds. He felt the exact moment it happened—the final loosening of her muscles, the change in her breathing pattern, the way she surrendered consciousness like it was easy.
He didn’t sleep easily. Never had. His brain resisted shutdown, kept running processes long after his body demanded rest. He’d learned to function on five or less hours of sleep a night. His parents had stopped worrying about it years ago.
But he was tired.
Not just physically. Something deeper. He pulled her closer. Closed his eyes.
And for the first time in longer than he could remember, sleep came without a fight.
Chapter 19
Six weeks ago:
Binary: What do you do when someone needs something you can’t give them?
Mercury: You try anyway.
Binary: Even if you fail?
Mercury: Especially then. The trying is the point.
He woke to the first pale light of dawn and cold sheets.
Lincoln’s hand found the empty space beside him before his eyes fully opened. The pillow still held the impression of Morgan’s head. The sheets smelled like her. But she was gone.
“Morgan?”
No answer. He waited for a while, but she didn’t return. She wasn’t using the bathroom or grabbing a quick drink of water. He pulled on his discarded pants, not bothering with a shirt, and went to find her.
The kitchen was empty. Coffeemaker untouched. The guest room door stood open, the bed inside still made fromyesterday. He made his way to the library, then his command center.
Nothing.
His pulse was climbing. He knew that was irrational—she was in the house; the security system would have logged any exit—but his body didn’t care about logic. His body remembered the warehouse. The four-foot box. The way she’d looked when they’d found her.
He circled back through the living room, and this time, he saw her. She was curled in the leather chair in the corner, knees drawn up, so still he’d walked right past her the first time.
He stopped and stared.
She was holding something. A notebook—one of the blank journals from his office, the kind he used for sketching system architecture. He hadn’t noticed one was missing.
He approached slowly, making sure his footsteps were audible on the hardwood. She didn’t look up.
From this angle, he could see fragments of what she’d written. Dense handwriting covering page after page.
Ms. D’s eyes—brown, warm, crinkled at the corners when she smiled. Voice: low, measured, slight Southern accent when she was tired.
Apartment: blue couch, left side of room. Third shelf had the Dickinson collection with the cracked spine.
And then, in shakier letters:
First foster home: yellow wallpaper. Roses? Peonies? Border at top?
