“There was nothing we could have done,” he whispered in the silence.
She nodded wordlessly, even though she didn’t quite believe him.
There was nothing she could do to let the world know of Niall’s sacrifice, either. She thought of his biological daughter, who would now never know her father had loved her, whom he had wanted to see the instant he left the agency. Sauda could never tell anyone outside of Panacea that she had loved him, never share her grief over his death. And as for herself—she would have to move on and pretend outwardly that nothing had happened, that she had never known this man. As if he had never existed.
It’s the loneliest job.Sauda’s old words to her echoed in her mind.
It took her another moment to realize that she was finally crying. Tears were dripping down her chin, and her lungs hurt from the squeeze of each silent sob. She reached up to hurriedly wipe the tears away, but they kept coming, and she turned her face away from Winter, embarrassed to let him see her like this. She couldn’t stop. All she could see was Niall’s face during their last meeting, that small, grumpy smile. His freshly shaven face.
Make me proud, kid.
Winter said nothing. Sydney was glad that he knew instinctively to stay back and let her cry. He waited patiently, his face turned down to the carpet. Sydney concentrated on the pain in her lungs, let herself feel theache of them and the wound in her heart and the weight on her chest. She wiped at her tears again and again. She could barely keep up with them.
“Here,” Winter said gently.
She realized he’d gone to the bathroom and brought back a washcloth for her, still warm from being soaked in hot water. She put it on her face, let it calm her.
She didn’t know how long it took before the tears finally slowed, before she could open her eyes and see clearly again. The stripes of light against Winter had changed. Idly, she realized that they should switch on a lamp.
Sydney turned her eyes back up to him. His hair was rumpled, as if he’d been raking his hands through it, and his gaze seemed tired and yearning. Yearning, always, for something out of reach.
Her heart tugged painfully. She knew that feeling all too well.
She took a deep breath and stared off into the darkness.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He frowned. “For what?”
She didn’t answer right away, because she wasn’t sure. Instead, she turned from him and toward the window, trying to understand why she’d said it.
When she’d been on a job with Tems, when they’d had their brief fling, had she felt this way?
No,she thought automatically. No, that had been different in every sense. They’d had a fling because they were snowed in to their hotel room, she was bored, and he was being charming. It had been fast and careless, something to pass the time. And that was before he’d stranded her overseas.
This… She wasn’t sure what this was. But when she studied Winter’s face, there was a warmth in her chest, an ache in her stomach. There was a lump in her throat when she remembered the words he had blurted out last night.
I have thought about you every single day since London.
“It’s not just a song,” she finally said.
He blinked, then laughed softly. “It’s okay.”
She shook her head. “I think what I mean is—when you agreed to join Panacea, I promised you that I was going to be your partner. Where you go, I go. But you were trying to tell me something, and I refused to listen to you.”
Winter shifted, and for a moment, his expression seemed lost and young. “Look,” he said, “forget everything I said. I shouldn’t have put that on you.”
Sydney hesitated. “There is something about you that scares me, Winter.”
He looked back at her. “Why?” he asked.
She opened her mouth, then closed it again, searching for the right explanation. “My father and I always had a violent relationship,” she began. “He’s not a good man. He hit my mother, hit me and my brother. But one time, someone broke into our home and stole a box of cash that he’d been saving up. It had over twelve hundred dollars in it. I never knew what he was saving it up for, but I saw him stash a few dollars every time he staggered home from a late-night shift. He’d take it out sometimes and count it, and I swear it was the only time I ever saw him genuinely happy. Like that box held something that could change his life.” She paused again. “When it was stolen, my dad went sprinting down the street, as if he might be able to catch the thief, who’d long gone. Then he went missing for several days and came home dead drunk.”
The image reappeared in her mind of her father staggering away from the house, his figure illuminated by a streetlight against cracked pavement before he was swallowed by the darkness beyond.
Winter searched her gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said.
She looked out the window. “Never in my life had I ever sympathized with my father. But I felt sorry for him that night. I’d saved up somemoney from my part-time jobs that summer, so I got it from my room and went to him and tried to give it to him. I told him he could have it, if it’d cheer him up.”
