Twodayspass.
I compile the intelligence from Whitmore into a dossier that reads like a roadmap of Moore's corruption. Bank accounts in Cyprus, shell companies in the Caymans, a network of handlers and facilitators that spans three continents. Names, dates, amounts. Everything Abernathy needs to justify keeping Elliot alive.
Everything I need to keep Webb at bay.
But something has changed in the apartment. A tension that wasn't there before. Elliot moves differently around me now. Watches me from corners. Flinches when I reach for anything, even a coffee cup.
He's afraid of me.
Good, I told him.You should be.
I meant it. I still mean it. But there's a new variable in my calculations, something that registers as discomfort when I seehim pressed against the wall as I pass, eyes tracking my hands like they're weapons.
They are weapons. He's right to watch them.
But I find myself wishing he wouldn't.
On the third night, I wake to the sound of crying.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just quiet, choked sobs leaking through the wall between his room and the hallway where I've been sleeping in the chair.
Pushing my door open, I stand, cross to his room, listen. The crying continues, punctuated by ragged breaths that sound like they're being torn out of him.
I should leave him. Sleep is a healing process. Interruption can compound trauma rather than alleviate it.
I open the door anyway.
He's curled on the bed, knees to chest, face buried in the pillow. The sheets are tangled around his legs like restraints. His whole-body shakes with each sob.
"Elliot."
He freezes. The crying stops, replaced by the controlled stillness of someone who's learned that noise brings punishment.
"I'm sorry," he whispers into the pillow. "I'll be quiet. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize." I cross to the bed, sit on the edge. The mattress dips under my weight. "What happened?"
He doesn't answer. Doesn't move. Just lies there, trembling, waiting for whatever comes next.
I reach out. Hesitate. My hand hovers over his shoulder, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin.
"Elliot. Look at me."
He turns his head. His face is wet, eyes red and swollen, lips bitten raw. He looks broken. More broken than the day I took him from the auction.
"I can't stop imagining it," he says. His voice is barely a whisper. "The warehouse. The screaming. Your hands covered in blood." He squeezes his eyes shut. "And then it shifts, and it's Moore's hands, and I'm back in the basement, and I can't—I can't—"
His breathing hitches. He's spiraling, caught between past and present, unable to distinguish one trauma from another.
I do something I've never done before.
I lie down beside him.
The bed is too small for the both of us. My body presses against his back, arm draped over his waist, chest against his spine. I can feel his heart hammering through his ribs, rapid and arrhythmic.
"Breathe," I say against his hair. "In. Hold. Out."
He tries. The first breath comes out shaky, more sob than air. The second is better. The third is almost controlled.
