Blood is crusted in my hair, dried brown and flaking. It's streaked across my face, my neck, pooled in the hollow of my throat. My clothes are stiff with it, saturated, the original color impossible to determine beneath layers of other people's deaths.
I strip mechanically. Shirt first, peeling it away from skin it's adhered to. Pants next, heavy and wet in places where the blood didn't dry. Boots, socks, underwear. All of it goes into a pile in the corner, destined for incineration.
The shower is hot. I stand under the spray and watch the water run red.
Pink, then lighter, then finally clear as the last of the evidence swirls down the drain. A dozen men. Their blood is mixing with Geneva's water supply now, diluted to nothing,forgotten.
I don't forget.
I remember each of them. The operative whose throat I opened in the kitchen. The one whose eye I destroyed. The man I punched through, feeling cartilage and muscle give way beneath my knuckles. The ones on the lawn, in the house, the ones who begged and the ones who didn't have time to beg.
Alfred Webb, on his knees, offering me everything. Money. Information. The names of every Custodian who funded Project Omega. His words tumbled out in a desperate stream while I stood over him with someone else's knife in my hand.
I didn't listen.
I should have listened. That information could have been useful. Could have given us leverage, evidence, ammunition for the war we're fighting.
But all I could see was Jonah. On the ground. Bleeding out. Taking a bullet that was meant for me.
So I took Webb's head and left his secrets to burn with the house.
The water runs cold before I get out. I dry off with a thin towel, pull on the clean clothes someone left outside the door. Black pants, black shirt, anonymous and forgettable. The uniform of a man who doesn't exist.
In the hall, Elliot is waiting.
"Jace went to secure transport," he says. "Jinx is monitoring Ministry communications. I volunteered to make sure you didn't drown in the shower."
"Thoughtful."
“You’re welcome for the clothes. The lost and found had slim pickings.” He falls into step beside me as I walk back toward Jonah's room. "How are you doing? Really."
"I don't know."
"That's honest, at least."
We stop outside the door. Through the window, I can see Jonah sleeping, chest rising and falling with reassuring regularity.
"When Jace first brought me home," Elliot says quietly, "I was terrified. Not of him. Of what he might become, because of me. I watched him kill people who threatened me. Watched him throw away his position, his safety, everything he'd built. I kept waiting for him to realize I wasn't worth it. To resent me for making him choose."
"Did he?"
"Never. Not once." Elliot turns to face me. "The man in that room took a bullet for you. He's never going to resent you for what you did to protect him. He's going to love you harder because of it."
"You don't know that."
"I know what it's like to be saved by someone who became a monster for you. It doesn't make you love them less. It makes you love them more, because you finally understand the depth of it." He puts a hand on my arm. "Stop punishing yourself for being human, Jagger. You're allowed to feel things. You're allowed to protect the people you love. That's not weakness. That's the whole fucking point."
I don't know what to say. So I just nod, and he nods back, and then I push through the door to sit beside Jonah again.
The afternoon passes slowly. I doze in the chair, jerking awake every time a machine beeps or a door closes somewhere in the building. Jace comes and goes, reporting on transportation arrangements. Jinx sends updates about Ministry movements, each one more concerning than the last.
They're closing in. Webb's death has mobilized forces we didn't know existed. The hunt is on, and we're the prey.
But we've been prey before. We know how to survive.
At dusk, the doctor clears Jonah for transport.
"Against my recommendation," she adds firmly. "He needs rest. Proper recovery time. Moving him now is a risk."
