I’m noticing all of it, which means I’m already planning for it.
Contingencies. Routes. Exfil. Cover identities. Secure assets. Kill lists.
Because if she is the thing holding us together, we don’t get tofailat keeping her alive.
I take a sip of coffee gone lukewarm and log that, too. We’re past want—past fascination. We’re past whatever game we thought we were playing when we took her.
This is structural now. Load-bearing even. And if she walks?
We don’t bend. We fuckingcollapse.
I finally understand what that means.
What Rook meant when he told her “position.”
What I did when I deleted those feeds and didn’t tell anyone.
I’ve spent my life protecting assets—people, files, secrets.
But this isn’t that. This isn’t about duty or damage control. It’s about choosing a center and building a world around it. It’s about admitting that somehow, without any of us realizing it, she’s already the axis we’re all turning on.
I watch her laugh at something Vale says. Watch Wraith set a plate in front of her without being asked. Watch Saint lean in and murmur something to her in low, private tones that make her lips soften at the edges.
Her confidence is different this morning. Not performative. Not a front. Settled. Rooted. Like she finally believes she’s not going to be dragged out of bed at gunpoint and disappeared.
Like she’s starting to believe she might actually beours.
Jealousy burns under my tongue, bitter and uninvited. And then she glances up, finds my eyes across the room, and does the smallest thing. She mouths,you okay?
Just like that. Not are you watching me. Not are you impressed.
Are you okay.
And the anger goes out of me like air from a lung.
Envy,yes.
Exclusion,no.
That’s the difference. That’s the problem—thesalvation. She’s not pulling us apart. Ember’s stitching us in.
Thread through throat, through heart, through bone. A tether. A vow none of us said out loud. A liability,absolutely. A weakness, obviously.
The only thing that might keep us from killing each other before this is over?
Also… Yes.
I lean back against the counter, phone in my hand, eyes on her, and for the first time since she landed bloody on our floor, I let myself name it.
We’realreadyhers.
The only question left is how to make her believe we’re worth belonging to.
Chapter 36
Ember
The house is quiet again. Not the tense, waiting kind of quiet it used to be, but something steadier. Something that feels almost like rhythm.
