"And you think that means something."
"I know it means something. I just don't know what yet."
Marlee is quiet. She walks to the barn window, looks out at the farmhouse, at the figures moving behind the windows.
"The Silent made him," she says without turning around. "Same way the pits made us. You know what that means. You know the things they do to kids to turn them into weapons. The conditioning, the breaking, the rebuilding. Whatever's human inside him got beaten out a long time ago."
"You're wrong."
"Am I?"
"He walked away from me in that pit. He took the punishment instead of killing me. That's not a machine. That's a man fighting against what they made him."
She turns, studies my face. "And you want to be the one who saves him."
"I don't want to save him. He doesn't need saving." I set down the rifle and look at her. "I want to give him a choice. His whole life, people have made choices for him. What to be, who to kill,how to feel. I'm not going to be another person who takes that away. If he wants this, he has to choose it. If he doesn't, I'll walk away."
"Will you? Walk away?"
"If I have to."
"Somehow I don’t believe that."
Yeah. Me neither.
Marlee stands, brushes hay off her pants. "Fine. You want to chase a man who's more likely to gut you than kiss you, that's your business. But if he hurts you, really hurts you, I'm putting him down. History be damned."
"Noted."
"I mean it, Asher. I've buried too many friends. I'm not burying you because you fell for a man who doesn't know the difference between violence and love."
"He knows the difference." I stand and pull her into a brief, rough hug. She stiffens, then relaxes into it. We're not huggers, either of us, but sometimes you need the contact. "He's just scared of both."
"That doesn't make it better."
"No. But it makes it human." I release her and step back. "Thanks for caring."
"Someone has to. You clearly don't have the sense to care about yourself."
She leaves, and I'm alone with my weapons and my thoughts.
She's right. I probably am walking into a fire. Jinx is dangerous in every way that matters, and whatever's happening between us is as likely to end in blood as it is in tenderness.
But I've spent my whole life surviving. Fighting. Enduring.
Maybe it's time to try living instead.
We load the vans at eleven.
Weapons, gear, medical supplies. Everything we might need for a mission that could go right or go very, very wrong. Kira and Dom take the first van, heading to the rally point early to set up extraction. The rest of us pile into the second.
It's cramped. Jagger in the front with Jonah, running comms. Jace and Marlee in the middle, checking weapons one last time. Thiago wedged into a corner, somehow managing to sleep despite the tension.
And me and Jinx in the back.
We haven't spoken since the briefing. Since my stupid joke that made everyone uncomfortable and made him look at me with murder in his eyes. He's been avoiding me all day, which is fair, but now we're stuck in a metal box together for the next three hours.
The van pulls out. The farmhouse disappears behind us. Ahead, Geneva and a bunch of murder children who need saving.
