Her face looks like I struck her, and I immediately regret my words. But she has to know what we’re up against. She has to understand.
“Look, I’m sorry, I just mean?—”
“So we just stay hidden forever? We run forever?” Her voice rises as her eyes narrow.
"If that's what it takes to keep you safe." My voice is low and calm. But inside, I’m anything but.
“I think you’re afraid.”
Now I’m sure I look like she struck me. “Afraid?”
“Yeah. Afraid. Because what happens if we are able to pull this off? The bad people go to jail, and that place gets shut down, and I go back to my life. Are you coming with me?”
I make several failed attempts to speak. I’ve never thought about it. Is she asking me? “I don’t?—”
“I don’t know what this is. What we are. But if we do win, it means you can’t go off into the woods and punish yourself like you’ve been doing. It means you have to see the good you’ve done and live around people and society again. It’s all imperfect, Walker. It’s easy to be cynical. It’s hard to hope.”
I shake my head. She’s wrong. Isn’t she? “I just don’t know if I can protect you from them.”
“Maybe you can’t. But I’m not willing to live like you were when I found you. I’m not willing to give up.”
Silence except for the sizzle of the onions now burning.
Her eyes have that cold fire again. Like they did when I first met her. These past few days felt like a dream because they were. Not real. A fantasy.
This was never something that could work.
And it’s time to wake up.
But again, I feel the pull to tell her the words. They would solve nothing. Change nothing about the reality of our situation.
And still, they threaten to pour from my lips.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
But before I can say anything, there's a loud bang, the shattering of glass, and my arm explodes in pain. The bullet tears through muscle and sinew, spinning me around with its force. I'm knocked to my knees, my vision blurring at the edges. Naomi screams, high and terrified, a sound that cuts deeper than the bullet.
I take her down with me, covering her body with mine even as blood streams hot and wet down my arm. The door bursts open with enough force to tear one hinge completely free. A man in tactical black enters, pistol raised with mechanical precision. Before I can reach for my weapon, he fires again. White-hot agony tears through my thigh, and I grunt through clenched teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream.
The figure removes his tactical mask, but I already know who it is. Logan.
"Hello, Walk," he says, his voice as calm as if we just ran into each other on an evening stroll.
I press harder against Naomi, feeling her trembling beneath me. My blood drips onto my shirt she’s wearing, staining the white cotton crimson. But soon, Logan rips her from me. Wounded as I am, I can’t hang on to her.
“Leave her alone!” I scream.
“Wish I could.” Logan shakes his head like he’s truly disappointed. “But you brought her into this. You connected her to you, made her a target. This is on you.”
“You hurt her and I’ll fucking kill you.”
Logan laughs. His weapon is trained on me, not on her. But Naomi won’t risk Logan killing me to get away even though I wish with everything I have that she would. “There it is. There’s the frustration. The impotent, worthless rage against something you have no control over. That’s what I lived in that hellhole halfway across the world. And now I can inflict it on you.And her.”
“You made your decision. I didn’t make you set those fires. Burn those people alive.”
