I’m at the shooting range, the sun dipping low, painting everything in gold. The scent of gunpowder hangs thick, mingling with pine and the faint tang of sweat. The targets sway lazily downrange in the evening breeze. Jon is beside me, crouched low, voice clipped but steady as he adjusts my stance.
“Elbows in, shoulders down. You’re trying to punch the rifle like a hammer, not guide it.”
I nod, but I can feel the flush creeping up my neck, hot and impossible to hide. He’s too close, his presence too solid, too infuriatingly… grounding. My pulse quickens as he leans over, one hand brushing mine as he steadies the barrel, and I catch the way his gaze flicks toward me. Not at the target, not at the line, but at me. Like I’m the thing requiring focus. Like I’m the thing throwing him off.
“Why are you really here?” he asks softly, voice low enough that I think it’s only meant for me.
I freeze, the barrel stilling in my hands. “I… I’m learning,” I mutter, the lie tasting bitter even as it leaves my mouth.
He tilts his head, expression hard but eyes soft. “No. That’s not it.”
Something tightens in my chest. My heart hammers in response, but it’s not fear. It’s anticipation. Confusion. The dangerous thrill of maybe, just maybe, the man I’ve always respected—no, looked up to—might see me differently. Might feel something more than responsibility, than duty.
“You’re thinking too much,” I whisper, though the words are almost lost in the hiss of the targets downrange.
Jon’s lips twitch, a ghost of a smile, and I can feel it, feel him, closer than he should be, leaning just a hair toward me. “Maybe,” he admits quietly, voice brushing against me, “or maybe you’re finally noticing.”
My stomach lurches. My breath hitches. Everything—the training, the rules, the invisible boundaries that should neverbe crossed—blurs. I want to pull away, but I can’t. I want to look at him, see if it’s real, see if he’s just human, see if there’s something behind those sharp edges of his control that makes him feel the same reckless pull.
I glance up. His eyes meet mine. There’s a tension there, taut and electric, and for a moment, just a heartbeat, I believe it. I believe there’s a line he wants to cross, too, one he’s holding himself back from, just like I am.
And then the warmth fractures. The edges of the memory blur as the darkness creeps back in—the cold, the harsh clang of the cell door, the smell of damp concrete and blood. The soft brush of sunlight over pine and gunpowder is gone, replaced by a shadowed room, the sharp edge of a Russian accent, and the taste of fear. I stumble back, heart hammering, hands clutching at my arms as if holding onto myself will make the nightmare less real. King is slumped against the wall, bruised and bleeding, a mockery of the strength I used to rely on. My pulse surges, panic bubbling, and for the first time in days, I feel it—the helplessness, the suffocating tension that makes every second stretch out like hours.
“Stay calm,” I whisper to myself, though my voice trembles, though every memory of Jon’s careful, steadying hands feels like a cruel joke now. His sunlit smile is already fading in my mind, replaced by the cold, calculating eyes of men who know exactly who I am, who I’ve been, and who I mean to someone else.
I grip the edge of my pocket, fingers closing over the card I’ve been holding. My escape plan. My lifeline. My only tether to something that isn’t fear. The warmth of that day at the range, the fragile, electric moment with Jon—it’s already fading, slipping into the shadows that have claimed this place.
I jerk awake with a sound caught somewhere between a gasp and a choke.
The ceiling is white again. The sheets are twisted around my legs. My pulse is battering itself against my ribs hard enough to make the monitor beside me jump into a frantic, shrill rhythm. For one disorienting second I don’t know where I am. I just know I’m trapped. I just know I can’t get enough air in and there’s light in my eyes and my skin feels too tight.
The curtain shoves open.
A nurse appears first, startled, reaching for the monitor, but she doesn’t even make it to the bedside before Jon is suddenly there behind her, moving fast enough to make the room tilt.
“Out,” he says.
The nurse blinks. “Captain, I need to—”
“I said out.”
There’s something in his voice that sends her back a step before she can think better of it. She disappears with one last uncertain glance, and then it’s just him and me and the sound of my own breathing going wrong.
“Delilah.” His voice is lower now. Still sharp, but aimed differently. Controlled. “Look at me.”
I can’t. I’m staring at the blanket twisted in my fists like it’s the only thing holding me to the bed. My hands are shaking so badly my nails keep slipping against the fabric. My chest is caving in and expanding too fast, too shallow, like my body has forgotten how to do something as basic as live without supervision.
“Delilah.” Closer this time. “Eyes on me.”
I drag my gaze up because something in me still listens when he uses that tone. Still obeys. Still wants to.
He’s leaning over the bed now, forearms braced near my hips, not touching me but crowding out everything else. His face is tense, exhausted, the hard lines of him thrown into relief beneath the med bay lights. He looks angry. Terrified. Both. Likehe’d rather punch through the wall than watch this happen and is settling for neither.
“You’re here,” he says. “Greenport. Med bay. No cell. No restraints. Just me. Breathe.”
The last word cracks like an order, and maybe that’s why it gets through when nothing else does. I pull in a breath too sharp, too fast.
“No.” He shakes his head once. “Slower.”
