"I don't know what I am anymore," I say.
"That's okay." He smiles, and his whole face softens.
For thirty years, I've operated alone. Made decisions alone. Killed alone. The only people I've ever trusted are my brothers, and even that trust has limits. Boundaries. The cold architecture of survival.
But Jonah is offering something different. Partnership. Connection. The terrifying possibility of not being alone anymore.
I should refuse. Should push him away, rebuild my walls, return to the safety of isolation, finish making his fake passport and send him on a one-way plane trip far, far the fuck away from here. From me.
Instead, I pull him closer.
He comes willingly, settling against my side, his head on my shoulder. We sit like that as the last light fades from the windows, as the city comes alive with evening sounds, as the betrayal of what I've done settles into my bones.
I killed a man today. Not for The Silent. Not for the Ministries. For Jonah. For the chance to keep him safe a little longer.
I should feel guilty. I should feel something.
What I feel is his warmth against my side, his breath evening out as exhaustion catches up with him, his hand still tangled with mine.
What I feel is home.
And that's the most terrifying thing of all.
Chapter Ten: Jonah
TwodaysafterJaggerkills a man for me, I find him in the library just after one thirty a.m.
He's not reading. He's sitting in the dark, staring at the shelves like they hold answers to questions he can't articulate.
I've been watching him unravel since Holloway died. Not dramatically. Not obviously. But in small ways that someone else might miss. The way he checks the security feeds twice as often. The way he flinches when his phone buzzes. The way he looks at me sometimes, like he's memorizing my face in case he never sees it again.
He gave up something when he killed that man. Some piece of the stoicism he's spent years building. And now he doesn't know how to function without it.
"You should be asleep," he says without turning around.
"So should you."
"I don't sleep much."
"Bullshit. You sleep fine when you're not spiraling." I cross the room and sit on the arm of his chair, close enough that my thigh presses against his arm. "Talk to me."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"More bullshit." I reach down and run my fingers through his hair. He tenses, then slowly relaxes into the touch. "You've been wound tighter than a spring for two days. Something's going to break if you don't let it out."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're sitting in the dark, staring at books you're not reading." I tug gently at his hair, tilting his head back so he has to look at me. "What's going on in that head of yours?"
His eyes are gray in the low light. Gray and tired and full of the emotion I'm learning to recognize as fear.
"I don't know who I am anymore," he says quietly.
"You're Jagger Harrison."
"That's a name. It's not an identity." He reaches up, catches my wrist, holds it against his cheek. "Most of my life, I knew exactly what I was. A weapon. A tool. Something designed for a specific purpose. And now..."
"Now you're becoming something else."
