"You did." His eyes meet mine. Red-rimmed. Exhausted. Haunted. "You stubborn fucking bastard, you did."
The relief in his voice is raw. Unguarded. I've never heard him sound like that before, never heard him let the walls down enough to show how scared he was.
I was dreaming about her. Helena Cross. The woman who turned me into a weapon and called it a gift. The woman who watched me scream and took notes on my destruction.
"Dom," I say, because I need something else to focus on. Something that isn't the memory of electrodes and needles and a voice telling me I wasn't a person.
Asher flinches. His hand tightens on mine, and for a long moment, he doesn't speak.
"We buried him yesterday. Small service. Just us." His voice is flat now, all the emotion locked away. "Kira stayed with him until the end. She said he went peaceful. Said he was smiling."
"Asher..."
"Don't." He stands abruptly, releasing my hand, pacing to the window. His back is to me, but the tension in his shoulders says everything his face won't. "Don't tell me it wasn't my fault. Don't tell me I made the right choice. Don't tell me any of the bullshit people say when someone dies and they don't know how to fix it."
"I wasn't going to."
"Then what?"
"I was going to say I'm sorry."
He turns. His eyes are wet, but no tears fall. The control is ironclad, even now.
"You're sorry."
"For making you choose. For being the reason you had to leave him." I hold his gaze, refusing to look away. "I know what that cost you. I know what it feels like to lose someone because youcouldn't be in two places at once. And I'm sorry that I'm the one who's still here when he's not."
Asher crosses back to the bed. Sinks into the chair beside me. Takes my hand again, and this time his grip is desperate, like I'm the only thing keeping him tethered to the ground.
"Don't be sorry for being alive." His voice cracks. "Don't ever be sorry for that. Dom told me to go. He told me to save you. If you apologize for surviving, you make his sacrifice worthless."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know what you meant." He lifts my hand to his lips, presses a kiss to my knuckles. The gesture is so tender, so unexpected, that my breath catches. "But I need you to understand something. I chose you because the last thing he said, was that he saw what I was too scared to admit, and he pushed me toward it even though it meant dying without me there to help him cross."
"What did he say?"
Asher's eyes meet mine. Dark and steady. Just like in the dream.
"That you're my future. And he wanted me to have one."
The words settle into my chest, warm and terrifying. Future. Like this is more than just sex and violence and two broken people crashing into each other. Like this is something that could last.
"I don't know how to do this," I admit. The words come out rough, dragged from somewhere deep. "Caring about someone. Being cared about. The Foundry trained that out of me before I was old enough to remember what it felt like."
"I know."
"The last time I let myself want something, they used it against me." The memory surfaces, different from the flashback but no less cruel. Protocol Twelve. The final test before they declared you ready for deployment. "I was thirteen. There was a girl in my cohort. Subject F7. We weren't supposed to talk, but we found ways. Notes hidden in food trays. Hand signals when the cameras weren't looking. She was the first person who made me feel like a boy."
Asher's hand tightens on mine. He knows what's coming. He's lived this story himself.
"They found out." My voice goes flat. It has to. If I let myself feel this, I'll crack. "They dragged her into my cell in the middle of the night. Two handlers held me down while a third... while he..."
I stop. Breathe. The walls I built start to shake.
"They made me watch. Said it was a lesson. Said attachment was weakness, and weakness had to be cut out." I force myself to meet his eyes. "When they were done with her, they gave me a knife. Told me to finish it."
"Jinx..."
