Isaac touched her arm. “Come with me for a minute.”
She looked up. Her gray eyes were flat, turned inward, holding everything at arm’s length. She stood without a word and followed him out of the room.
The corridor was empty. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. A water cooler burbled against the far wall. Isaacpulled the conference room door shut behind them and turned to face her.
She leaned against the wall. Her arms crossed over her chest, her wrapped wrist cradled against her ribs.
“Maybe it’s better if I leave,” she whispered.
“Leave where?”
“Here. All of this.” She shook her head, and when she spoke again her voice had dropped. “Cass is in danger because of me.”
“Cass is in danger because three people with too much money hired a sociopath. That’s not your fault.”
“It is my fault. I’m the one who went after them. I’m the reason Kessler exists in their lives.”
He stepped closer. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t lean in, either. She held her ground against the wall with her arms locked across her body, her chin up.
“Where would you go?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Somewhere that doesn’t have a whole compound full of people rearranging their lives because I picked a fight I couldn’t finish.”
“You’d go back to running alone. Back to handling everything yourself, with a body that’s still healing and a professional killer tracking your path and getting closer every day.”
Her mouth opened. Closed. He watched the argument stall out.
“I don’t know how to let people help me.” The words came out raw, stripped of performance. “My whole life, the people who were supposed to protect me couldn’t. My father couldn’t protect himself. My mother couldn’t protect either of us. I learned early that if something needed to be done, I did it myself or it didn’t get done. And now I’m in a building full of people who are volunteering to do what no one in my life has ever been able to do, and I don’t know where to stand. I don’t know what my role is when I’m not the one carrying everything.”
Isaac wrapped his arms around her. Pulled her against his chest and held her there. She resisted for one second. Two. Then her forehead dropped against his shoulder and her arms uncrossed, and her hands gripped the front of his shirt, and she let him take her weight.
He pressed his mouth against the top of her head.
“Your role is to let us help. That’s it. That’s the whole job right now.”
Her fingers tightened on his shirt. He could feel her pulse through the thin fabric, fast and shallow, and the careful way she was breathing, measured pulls that kept everything locked down.
“This is the safest place you can be right now. These people know what they’re doing. Ian built this compound for exactly this kind of situation.”
Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. “And if I can’t stay? If it gets to be too much?”
“Then we go together.” He said it without hesitation. “If you really want to leave, we leave. Both of us. I’m not letting you disappear alone again.”
She was still against him. He ran his hand down her back once, slow, and felt the rigid line of her spine ease by one reluctant degree.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay you’ll stay?”
“Okay I’ll stay.” A breath. “For now.”
He held her for another long moment. Her grip on his shirt loosened, finger by finger, until her hands were resting flat against his chest instead of clutching.
“We’re going to handle this,” he said. “All of us. Together. We’re not going to stop until you’re safe.”
She pulled back. Looked up at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry, and the set of her mouth had firmed. She nodded once.
He took her hand and led her back to the conference room.
