Page 215 of Operation: Defiance

Fuck me.

“You’re not gone. Your nervous system is releasing all the shit it’s been holding onto for the past two weeks.”

She stares at me like I’ve just handed her a math problem she doesn’t know how to solve.

“This isn’t a failure.” I take her hand between both of mine, rubbing lightly to take some of the chill from her fingers. “You held yourself together until it was safe enough to let go. That’s not weakness. That’s strength choosing when to recover.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.” With a single shudder, she sinks deeper into the cushions.

“It’s not supposed to. For people like us, it always feels ugly and unsteady and wrong. But this is how we heal. How we last.”

Her throat works like she wants to argue, but then she stares down at her hands. The tremor eases, and she curls her fingers against mine.

“I’m going to make you some tea, then start dinner. Food will help.” I bring our joined hands to my lips and brush a kiss to her knuckles.

Her eyes drift shut, and she sighs. “Okay.”

In the kitchen, I start cooking because it’s all I can do at the moment. She’s too wrecked to go through the files, and I’m not sure what to look for.

Garlic, butter, oregano, cream. Pasta with the barest hint of crushed red pepper, because Raine deserves flavor with her fuel.

Halfway through cooking, she sits up with a little wince and eases the laptop onto her thighs. The exhaustion is still there, but the glassy, vacant stare is gone. She let herself relax longer than I expected—but less than I’d hoped.

She plugs in the thumb drive, opens one of the files, and starts reading. Her focus isn’t sharp. But it’s not gone either.

By the time I’ve ladled two servings of chicken fettuccine alfredo into bowls, the whole apartment smelling like comfort in the form of cheese and cream, her cheeks have more color. Raine glances up at me when I set her bowl on the coffee table. “I’m not hungry.”

Her stomach chooses that exact second to call her out for not being able to read her body’s signals.

“Fine. I didn’t know I was hungry,” she huffs.

“You were focused. It happens.” I take a seat next to her, giving her enough space to curl up with her bowl without feeling crowded.

“I can only get the shape of it,” she says, twirling her fork through the steaming pasta. “The details are…noisy.”

“Do you want to talk through the edges? Or should we pretend we’re two people whose hobbies don’t include dismantling institutional evil?”

Raine almost chokes on her bite of pasta, but her laugh is the best sound I’ve heard all day. “I can’t decide what’s more concerning. That you think of this as a hobby, or that you make it sound so…normal.”

“I suppose it’s more of a very niche skill set,” I say, keeping my tone light. “But we won’t know until after we take down GSD and decide where life leads us next.”

Her fork wobbles for a moment, her gaze pinned to her bowl. “You say that like there’s an after. One with me in it.”

“There is.” I set my bowl down, then shift closer. “The minute you said ‘follow my lead,’ I was in, Raine. I didn’t understand why at the time, but I do now. You don’t run from a fight. You stay so no one else gets hurt. I know what that kind of courage costs. And exactly what it’s worth.”

Her cheeks flush bright red. But as she eats, she summarizes what she saw in GSD’s files.

“Ellen was right,” she says. “It didn’t start out as Coherent Path. Eleven years ago, it was the Operational Standards Intensive. They made it sound like a week at a spa. And…it was optional.”

“But it didn’t stay that way. When did it change?”

“Six years ago. Right before Ellen retired. That’s when it became Coherent Path. There…was a memo.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Dr. Julian Voss. He’s the one who created Coherent Path. The language in it…‘controlled isolation’ and making sure ‘independent judgment’ didn’t interfere with ‘operational objectives.’” She stares at her hands curled around the bowl. “He’s a doctor. Probably psychology, but I’ll have to look up the letters after his name.”

“You got all the employee files?” I ask, nudging the bowl a little closer to her. She’s barely eaten, and she needs the fuel to get through this crash.

She nods, the motion lagging like she’s moving through quicksand. “Every one that was tied to the approval code I found in the archive. But there are so many. I need to know which ones didn’t come back to GSD—who retired, who just…disappeared…”

“I can help with that. You’d need to show me what to look for, but…”