"In three days, I'll present this to Director Abernathy. He'll see the value in keeping you. Webb will lose his leverage. The Custodians will back off." A pause. "You'll be safe."
"Safe." The word tastes like ash in my mouth. "You tortured a man for hours and you're talking about safe."
"I tortured a man who helped Moore launder the money he made from selling people like you." Jace's voice doesn't change, but something in it sharpens. "Whitmore processed thepayments for every asset Moore ever purchased. Everybody that passed through that house, every person broken and sold and disposed of, Whitmore made sure the numbers balanced. He stole from The Silent. Took what didn’t belong and then damaged our assets, over and over. I’m surprised you survived. The others didn’t."
I think about that. About the hands that touched me, the eyes that watched me, the voices that bid on me like I was livestock. About the money that changed hands, the accounts that recorded my sale, the paperwork that turned me into property.
Gerald Whitmore handled all of it. Every transaction. Every life reduced to a line item in a ledger.
"That doesn't make it right," I say. But my voice is weaker now. Less certain.
"Yes. It does.”
We're almost back to the city when he speaks again.
"You're afraid of me now."
It's not a question. He can see it in the way I'm sitting, the distance I'm maintaining, the way I flinch when his hand moves toward the gear shift.
"Yes," I say. There's no point in lying.
He nods. Processes. Files it away.
"Good," he says. "You should be."
I stare at him. "Good?"
"I told you what I am. I've never hidden it. But there's a difference between knowing and understanding." He glances at me, then back at the road. "Now you understand."
"So what, this was a test? You wanted me to see?"
"No. I wanted you to be safe. Bringing you was a tactical necessity." He pauses. "But I'm not sorry you saw. You needed to know exactly what kind of man is protecting you."
"A serial killer."
"Yes. A mindless monster who will do anything to keep you. Better for me to be the monster out there then the one under your bed." His hands tighten on the wheel, the first sign of emotion I've seen since we left the warehouse. "Most men who claim to care about you would hesitate. Would draw lines they won't cross. Would sacrifice you before they sacrificed their principles."
"And you?"
"I have no principles. No lines. No limits." He looks at me again, and for a moment, I see it in his eyes. Something raw and hungry and utterly inhuman. "I would slaughter the world to keep you safe, Elliot, lead them to the fields and put a bullet between their eyes. I would kill everyone, if necessary. And I wouldn't feel a single moment of regret."
The words should terrify me. They do terrify me.
But underneath the terror, something else stirs. Something dark and damaged and desperate.
He would burn the world for me.
No one has ever cared enough to burn anything for me. Not my parents, who gave me up. Not my handlers, who used me. Not Moore, who broke me.
But this monster, this killer, this thing that wears a man's face and speaks in a man's voice... he would destroy everything for me.
I don't know what to do with that.
I don't know if I want to run from it or lean into it.
So I do neither. I just sit in the silence of the car, watching the city grow closer, and try to understand how the same hands that broke a man's bones this morning can touch me so gently that I forget to be afraid.
Chapter Nine: Jace
