And I have no idea what to do about it.
My phone buzzes. A message from the Ministry. Routine check-in on the asset. The same asset they believe to be in the cells I head.
I type my response without hesitation:Asset stable. Memory resurgence slower than expected. Continuing evaluation. Will advise.
Lies. All of it. His memories are surfacing faster than any processed asset I've ever seen, and I have no intention of advising anyone about anything.
I'm hiding himin my house. Protecting him. Going against everything The Silent stands for, everything I've built my career on, everything I was trained to be.
And the worst part is that I don't know if I'm doing it because he might have information I need, or because of the way he looked at me in that interrogation room and called me human.
No one has ever called me human.
No one has ever seen past the monster.
I close the security feed. Force myself to stand, to move, to do something other than stare at a sleeping man like some kind of malfunctioning stalker.
The kitchen is still scattered with evidence of his presence. His coffee mug in the sink, sugar granules on the counter, a cabinet door left slightly ajar. Small disruptions to my carefully ordered space. Signs that another person exists within my walls.
I should clean it up. Reset everything to its proper position.
Instead, I pour myself another cup of coffee and stand at the window, watching the city move through its afternoon rhythms, and think about sharp eyes and broken laughter and words that cut deeper than they should.
Maybe, if I'm very careful, I'll figure out how to extract what I need from him without losing myself in the process.
But even as I think it, I know it's already too late.
Something shifted the moment I saw him in that detention center. Something cracked when he looked at me and didn't flinch.
Jonah Doe is going to be a problem.
I’m turning into Jace. Fucking hell, kill me now.
Chapter Four: Jonah
Fourdaysinthisapartment, and I've learned exactly four things about the man.
One: he takes his coffee black and drinks it like it personally offended him.
Two: he owns more books than furniture, but I've never actually seen him read one.
Three: he watches me when he thinks I'm not looking. Security feeds, reflections in windows, peripheral glances that last a beat too long. I catch him every time, and every time, he looks away like I imagined it.
Four: he's starting to crack.
It's subtle. The kind of thing you'd miss if you weren't paying attention. But I've spent three years with nothing to do but observe—guards, doctors, the pattern of footsteps in hallways, the rhythm of shifts changing. Observation is the only skill I have left.
So I notice when Jagger's jaw tightens every time I make him laugh. Not a real laugh, mind you, but the almost-laughs. The moments when his mouth twitches and his eyeswarm for half a second before the wall slams back down. Those moments are getting more frequent.
There’s this cute way his hands flex when I push too hard with the jokes. The tendons in his forearms going taut, fingers curling into his palms like he's stopping himself from reaching for something.
Or the half-second delay before he responds to my bullshit, like he's running my words through some internal filter and coming up confused by the results.
Yesterday, I caught him standing outside my bedroom door at two a.m.. He didn't knock. Didn't come in. Just stood there, breathing, for about three minutes before walking away. I watched his shadow under the door and wondered what he was thinking.
I wonder a lot about what he's thinking.
The great Architect doesn't know what to do with me.
