The question comes out sharp, stripped of every ounce of gratitude he has left in his body after surviving the week we’ve had.
It earns the faintest smile from both men.
Not mockery. Recognition.
“He is a fighter, huh?” the scarred one asks, glancing briefly toward my father.
My father gives one small nod, the movement so restrained it makes the whole exchange feel stranger, more loaded, more private than I want it to. My mother has gone completely still beside him, not frightened exactly, but wary in the way people are when danger walks into a room and introduces itself politely.
The man steps farther inside.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he says. “My name is Echo Kane. My associate here is Roman Briar.”
The names settle into the room like something heavier than introductions should be.
Echo moves closer to the bed, one hand slipping into the inside pocket of his jacket. Every nerve in my body watches the motion. What comes out is not a weapon but a card, black, clean, expensive-looking in the kind of way that suggests money too old to need to prove itself. He holds it out to me first.
On the front, in minimal silver lettering, is one word:
Catalyst.
I take the card with fingers that feel too weak for something this strange.
“I am head of Catalyst,” Echo says, “an organization that specializes in ridding the earth of the sort of dirtbag your…” His eyes flick to Silas. There is the smallest pause before he chooses the next word. “Boyfriend killed.”
The word hangs there.
Boyfriend.
Silas does not react outwardly, but I feel the tiny shift in his body where he is pressed against me. Roman, behind Echo, looks like he notices that too.
“What do you want from me?” I ask.
The question sounds smaller than I intend. Not weak. Just tired in the way people are when they have been cut open too many times in too few days.
Echo’s gaze returns to Silas first.
“As a thank-you for what he did,” he says, “both his record and yours will be swept clean.”
That lands hard enough to make me blink.
Swept clean.
Not lessened. Not reviewed. Not handled. Removed.
Beside me, Silas gives the smallest scoff.
“Things don’t come at no cost,” he mutters.
Echo’s mouth shifts into something almost approving. “That is true.”
He does not pretend otherwise. Somehow that makes him more frightening.
“You see, the man who took you,” Echo continues, “the Handler, ran with a much larger organization. The Serpent’s Den. When we tried to trace leads out from him, the trail went cold.”
The room quiets further.
Even the machines seem less present now.
