I turn around to look at the others.
Nathaniel pretends not to listen from the passenger seat.
Talon is absolutely listening and doesn’t even pretend otherwise.
“This is going to be my last job,” Cassian says.
I nearly choke.
“What?” I ask.
He doesn’t look at me. He stares straight ahead, jaw locked, knuckles whitening on the steering wheel.
“I’m done,” he says. “After we catch them.”
The engine hums. The road stretches out empty ahead of us. The sky looks harmless. Everything inside me tilts sideways anyway.
I wait for him to elaborate, because this can’t mean what it sounds like.
But he does.
“This is the last time I hunt anyone,” Cassian continues. “The last time I put you in danger. The last time I put any of us in danger.”
And I… I…
I don’t know what to say.
Because ever since I met him, he’s been thehunt. Like it runs so deep in him I’m pretty sure there are little hunting particles in his blood.
Behind me, Talon stops chewing. Nathaniel’s head snaps around.
They weren’t expecting this.
That’s even more shocking. Cassian didn’t even discuss it with them.
“Cassian,” I whisper, “what are you talking about?”
“You heard me,” he says, finally looking at me. “It’s who I was. I’m not the same person anymore.”
Talon leans forward between the seats. “You wanna run that by us again, Captain? Because this feels like a conversation you maybe should’ve included your mates in.”
Nathaniel says nothing, but his silence is loud.
Cassian’s gaze doesn’t waver from mine.
“I’ve made up my mind,” he says.
I blink.
Once.
Twice.
Talon sits back slowly, staring at Cassian through the mirror.
“So what—after this, you retire?” Talon scoffs. “Do what, exactly? Teach self-defense to stressed suburban moms? Open a gym with money you don’t have? What are we talking about here?”
Cassian keeps staring at me.
