My fingers curl into the fabric of Nash’s shirt where it hangs off my body, gripping it tightly.
“That’s him,” I say, my voice barely more than a breath.
There’s no question. No doubt. Nash’s arm tightens a fraction where it’s banded across my waist.
“This is Deacon Cross,” he says. “And I’m pretty sure he’s the one whose letters you have.”
The name settles heavy in my chest. Deacon.
Ash?
My stomach twists again, something sharp and disorienting cutting through the clarity of the moment before I can catch it. I push it down immediately, focusing on what matters.
“I don’t understand. Why would you think this Deacon Cross…is my Ash?” The screen burns into my retinas. “Deacon Cross killed my family. It would be…so…fucked up for him to start writing me.” My breath hitches.
Behind me, Nash’s chest rises and falls in a steady breath. He takes his timeanswering.
“I can’t answer that for certain. There’s a familiarity to his letters?—”
My hands dig into the hair at my temples, and I shake my head a little. “Okay, skip that for the moment. I can’t…I just can’t. What is he? Who is he, to you?”
Nash’s arm tightens slightly around my waist—not restraining, just…present.
“He’s what we all were, once upon a time. A soldier,” he says. “In an organization called the Syndicate.”
The word sounds wrong. It’s too big. Too vague. Too loaded with meaning I don’t have yet. “A soldier? What the fuck does that mean, a soldier…who the hell is the Syndicate?”
“They’re the ones who killed your family.”
The room tilts, just enough to make everything feel off-balance. It’s not just him. It’s more than him.
Bigger than him.
“But why? Why my family? Why us?” I ask, the words quieter now, pulled from somewhere deeper than anger.
Nash exhales slowly, his gaze shifting from the screen to me for the first time since we sat down.
“I can speculate,” he says. “But I don’t really like to guess.”
“Speculate,” I snap, sharper now. I don’t care about careful.I don’t care about measured. I care about answers. “You owe me that much.”
He doesn’t, though. He doesn’t owe me a damn thing, and we both know it. His eyes narrow slightly, not in anger, but in consideration. Then?—
“Your family was either in their way,” he says, “or involved in something they shouldn’t have been.”
The words sting.
“No,” I say, shaking my head before he even finishes. “That’s not—no. That’s not true.”
“You don’t know that,” he replies evenly.
“I know my family.”
“Do you? You were seven years old. You knew sunshine and rainbows and a family that loved you. But you know just as well as I do, that the world is full of different types of monsters. Different mistakes. A million paths of good intentions just paving the way to Hell.”
The words wedge themselves beneath my ribs. They’re not dismissive or cruel. They’re just honest. And that’s worse than anything else.
My chest tightens, something defensive rising fast and hot to cover the crack forming underneath.
