I blink. “What?”
His voice stays calm. “Trust gets people killed. Awareness keeps them alive.”
For a second, something shifts in me—not warmth.
Respect.
I slide into the car.
The door shuts.
The city becomes glass and distance.
Aaron gets behind the wheel, starts the engine without hesitation, and pulls into the street as if we’re just two strangers leaving dinner.
Like nothing happened.
Like, I didn’t almost vanish.
As the lights streak across the windshield, my hands shake in my lap.
I stare down at my pendant, the silver charm pressing against my palm like a secret begging to be spoken.
I’ve kept a lot of things buried.
A lot of drawers closed.
But if Aaron is right—
If that necklace is a reason…
Then the thing hunting me didn’t start tonight.
It started the moment I touched something I shouldn’t have seen.
Aaron’s voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts, low and clipped, like he’s speaking to someone in his ear.
“She’s with me,” he says. “Yes. Confirmed. She’s dark.”
A pause.
Then, quieter, almost to himself:
“And she has no idea what she’s carrying.”
My throat tightens.
Because I do have an idea.
I just never wanted to say it out loud.
I stare out at Lisbon, blurring past us, and feel the last illusion of normal slip away.
Whatever this is—
It isn’t about Malenkov.
It isn’t even about Delta Five.
