“I’m here,” I murmur. “What do you need?”
He stares at me, his eyes pools of black, until he reaches for me with aching slowness. Like he thinks I’ll vanish if he moves too quickly, and he gently cups my jaw and brushes his thumb against my swollen lower lip.
“Dylan?” he says jaggedly, and I nod, leaning into his warmpalm.
“Don’t worry. He paid for it.” I touch his bleeding arm and try to find the source. “Are you hurt? What happened?”
He glances down, as if only just noticing the blood. “I thought…when they told me you’d been taken, I thought…”
He can’t finish the sentence, but he doesn’t need to. “I’m okay. I promise I’m okay,” I say. “Dylan texted me. He told me…He made me think you were in danger if I didn’t do exactly what he said, and—”
“You let him kidnap you?” Confusion and hurt flicker across Kit’s face, and I shake my head. But after a moment, I reconsider and nod.
“I didn’t know that’s what was going to happen, but…he sent me a picture of you in the pub, and it looked like it was from some kind of rifle scope. I didn’t think I had a choice,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m so bloody sorry. I panicked, and—and I didn’t have time tothink.”
He’s still now, so completely unmoving that I’m not sure he’s even breathing. But though guilt washes over me like liquid concrete, sticking to every part of me and solidifying into stone, I know I didn’t have much choice in the moment. I’d done the only thing I could do then, and now all I can do is murmur my apologies over and over until Kit finally slumps into my arms, his damp face buried in the crook of my neck.
After what feels like hours of simply holding each other, he sniffles into my collarbone, taking slow and steady breaths. “I’ve been having panic attacks since Liam died,” he admits, his words tickling my skin. “They started at his funeral, the first time…the first time someone called me Lord Clarence. That was the moment I realized he was really gone, and I…”
My heart cracks open as he swallows hard, and I thread my fingers through his hair at the nape of his neck. I’ve never questioned why he hates his title, assuming it has to do with the pretentiousness of the whole aristocracy. But this…
“I spent that first year after his death numbing the panic and grief with drink and—partying, and all those pictures you saw from Ben’s posts,” he mumbles. “I was in therapy, too, for a while, but I dropped it when it didn’t seem to help. It was a shit time. A really shit time. Things Ben or Maisie said would set me off without them realizing, and I couldn’t look my mother in theeye or even speak to my father, not when he was so insistent on bringing up the responsibilities that should’ve been my brother’s. It was too much. It’s still too much sometimes. But then you came to England, and…the worst of it quieted. It became manageable.”
Kit’s arms are still tight around me, but he pulls me into his lap, and I rest my head on his shoulder, silent and listening.
“The panic attacks became easier to control,” he continues softly. “At least for a while. But after Sandringham…they’ve been more frequent again, and I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to feel like they were your fault. They’re not. Something inside me is broken, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“You’re not broken,” I say, pulling away enough to peer at him. “You’re not. You’ve been through a lot, and your brain is finding ways to cope, that’s all.” I hesitate. And Iammaking it worse, but I can’t say that aloud. “I’m here, okay? Always. To talk, to—to distract you, if I can. Or if not, to just listen. Whatever you need. Whatever you want, all right? I love you.”
The urge to say more nearly overwhelms me, but I bite my tongue as he nods, and that’s enough for now. We fall back into silence as Kit leans against the edge of the mattress, me in his lap and our limbs tangled together. From the living room, I can hear the murmur of voices and the sound of glass being swept up, but no one disturbs us. Even Singh has left us alone for the time being.
“What happened?” he manages after what must be several minutes, his voice so low it’s more of a rumble than a whisper. “With…Dylan.”
I glance at the doorway once more to make sure we’re stillalone. “It wasn’t just Dylan,” I admit softly. “He brought me to Guy Fawkes.”
Kit’s eyes widen, and in a hurried whisper, I tell him everything that happened, from the moment I realized he was missing to when I stepped back into our bedroom and found Kit like this. I don’t leave anything out, but I do save the best for last.
“And I think—IthinkI found the list,” I whisper, nearly breathless now. “I didn’t get a real look at it, but when Guy was talking about Fox Rex alumni, he started to pull this book out, and it didn’t have a title on the spine. And it wasn’t dusty like the others, so I think he handles it frequently. I noticed it before he got in the room, but I didn’t have a chance to check—”
“So you don’t know for sure?” says Kit. I shake my head.
“There were cameras on me the whole time, I’m sure of it. If I’d looked, it would’ve given the whole thing away. But I’m almost positive. And I left a tracker there,” I add. Instantly Kit’s eyes are on me again, wide and unwavering. “I found it in the hem of your cardigan, right here.” I guide his fingers to the unraveled thread that still hangs from his sweater. “I didn’t know it was there, but—”
“You didn’t activate it?” says Kit, his voice catching with disbelief. “You had a tracker and—”
“We don’t know it’s the list, not for sure,” I say. “And besides, we don’t have any proof tying Ben to Fox Rex or the ABR. But if I can get another face-to-face with Guy, and if I can make him believe I’m on his side—that we’re both on his side, and that we have no idea Fox Rex is connected to the ABR—then maybe we stand a chance at getting him to slip up.”
Despite the heaviness of the night, I feel like something fizzyis bubbling up inside me. For once in all of this chaos, I’m useful, and if Kit knows what’s going on from the start, he won’t have to panic. Even better if he’s actually with me.
But I don’t expect the way his expression grows guarded, and my buoyancy fades. “What?” I say, but Kit blinks, as if I’ve pulled him out of a trance, and he brushes a lock of hair from my forehead.
“Nothing,” he says. “Have you told Singh any of this yet?”
I shake my head. “I promised I would after I saw you.”
“The sooner, the better, I think,” says Kit. “Once he knows you left a tracker, he’ll want to activate it and—”
“I don’t want to tell him about the tracker.”
