“Back on the plane,” Tems said at last.
Her attention returned to him.
“Back on the plane,” he repeated, “you could have let go of me. I almost fell through the plane’s open hatch and onto the runway. You could have let me die, and you didn’t.”
She rested her elbows on her knees. “I wanted you to stand trial for what you did,” she replied. “I wanted you to know that your actions caused so much pain.”
He studied her. “That wasn’t the reason,” he said. “I saw your face in that moment. You didn’t want me to die.”
Her lips tightened. “In spite of everything,” she said, “I once saw a side of you that opened up and told me your vulnerabilities. That made me laugh, that made me feel like you were my friend. I remembered a version of you that, for a split second, I thought I could be with, if only for fragments of time. That couldn’t have all been a hoax. There had to be something real in there.”
She thought he would say something sarcastic in response, but he didn’t. He looked away from her again. This time, there was something far away in his eyes, something that looked like regret.
“I saved you because I think people are worth saving,” she said quietly.
He didn’t say anything, turning his gaze instead on a slant of light at the top of his cell’s wall, and for a while, Sydney thought he had decided not to speak to her at all.
Then he looked down and sighed. “Alison MacGranger. Neil Wolfe.”
Sydney listened carefully as he listed several more names, checking halfway through to make sure that the recording device taped to the back collar of her jacket was functioning.
“Thank you,” she said. “If there are discrepancies, we’ll be coming back to you. So I hope you said the right names.”
He watched her as she rose to her feet. Finally, he said, “It’s because of him, isn’t it? This new, soft side of you?”
“Who?” she asked.
He nodded at her. “Your fancy boy.”
Sydney had stayed calm through their conversation, but at the mention of Winter, she felt the familiar jolt in her heart, the painful tug. “I don’t think you understand me,” she replied.
“I do. And you would leave all this for him.”
It was a dangerous thing for him to suggest, and Sydney noted the purposeful way he’d brought it up, knowing that Panacea was watching.Still, his words hit something deep and raw in her chest. She wanted to wince, but her expression stayed cool and composed.
“I would do whatever was needed,” she said. “As I would for any mission.”
Tems stared at her a moment longer. “He’s lucky, you know,” he said at last. “To have you watching his back.”
She snorted. “I’m pretty sure he’s never been in more danger than after he began working with me.”
“He’s lucky,” Tems repeated. “I hope he knows that.”
She thought of Sauda and the grief in the woman’s eyes, thought of all the warnings she’d ever been given about falling in love in this line of work. She thought about whether or not she could bear following in Sauda’s shoes.
“I would have stayed with you,” Tems said. “If I could.”
This was his old charisma coming out again, trying to worm his way back into her heart, telling her things that he didn’t mean. Sometimes, people don’t change. And once upon a time, she might have believed him, would have thought that he was someone who understood her solely because they had run through the same gauntlets together, had faced the same hardships together.
Now she just straightened and turned toward the cell door. She knew where her heart belonged, and she knew what she wanted to do.
“Goodbye, Tems,” she said over her shoulder, and closed the door behind her.
The next night, Sydney found herself parking her rental car in front of a quiet house on an unassuming street in a suburb of Houston, Texas.
This time, Sauda hadn’t sent her. Sydney was here on her own, and as she sat in the darkness of the car, she wondered if she was doing the right thing, if she should be opening this wound at all.
She reached into her bag and pulled out Niall’s letter, the one he had hoped to give Quinn after his retirement.
