Page 273 of Operation: Defiance

“Let me clear it, okay?” she asks when I unlock the door.

I nod, then watch her move through the space with practiced ease. Closets, bathroom, behind the couch, and inside the tiny pantry hidden by a narrow door.

Thirty seconds later, she moves to the fridge. “I’m making you lunch. Anything in here you can’t eat?”

“No. Asher...” I can’t finish the sentence. He left me all those containers. Four days of food, labeled and tucked away because he knew I wouldn’t take the time to cook anything.

“Well, shit. Someone planned well. Friday lunch it is.” She pulls the Tupperware of creamy potato soup out of the fridge and starts rummaging through the cabinets for silverware and a bowl.

I sink down into one of the kitchen chairs to open my laptop. The disposal order folder sits in front of me, but the characters are nothing more than faint black lines against a white background. I can’t make them resolve into words.

“So…” Inara sets the bowl, spoon, and a glass of water next to me. “Want to tell me why you don’t think you’re living through the end of this?”

I choke on the first taste of soup.

“Sorry. My timing is usually better than that,” she says with a little smile. “But that doesn’t change the question.”

I eat slowly. Deliberately. Keeping my focus on the bowl so I don’t have to look Inara in the eyes. Halfway through, I pause. “I’ve run the variables. All of them. In most of the scenarios, we’re together. In a few…that doesn’t happen. I’ve made peace with the odds.”

Inara leans back in her chair, lifts the lid on the box of donuts, and places a large fritter on her plate. “Well, I haven’t.”

A sudden burst of emotion flushes my cheeks. “For what it’s worth, I’m going to try very hard not to die.”

Her light, musical laugh fills the space between us. “That’s something, at least. Eat. Talking about death can wait until after the dishes are done.”

The soup helps. Until it doesn’t. The exhaustion sitting behind my eyes moves somewhere louder. My vision blurs for a moment, and I push up from the table to make another French press pot of coffee.

The bag slips from my hand. It lands on the counter, splits open, and beans roll everywhere with tiny, ridiculous-sounding plinks.

I stare at the mess with no idea what to do next.

“Okay.” Inara turns from the sink, dries her hands on a dish towel, and folds it carefully. “You’re wiped, hon. Why don’t you get horizontal for a bit? I’ll clean this up.”

The panic is immediate and not entirely rational. But knowing those things doesn’t help. The heat hits my face first. A sudden rush of blood that floods through my neck, into my cheeks—then vanishes in a heartbeat. The cold is sudden and everywhere, and I can’t tell if I’m breathing.

“Raine?” Inara asks, positioning herself in my eye line.

“I can’t… The disposal orders. I have to redact them before Brett’s affidavit comes in so I can send the third packet and contact GSD and get Asher out of there…”

“I’ll do it.”

I blink, not quite understanding those three words.

“You sleep,” she says. “I redact. You wake up, the orders are ready, and we wait for Brett’s affidavit together.” She pauses for a moment, her tone softening even further. “I’m as stubborn as you are, Raine. And I’ve been in…well, not your shoes, but similar ones. I’ll tell you that story when this is all over. But you have to be around to hear it.”

I’m exhausted in a way that’s almost worse than when I escaped from the black site. There, it hurt, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t do…anything.

But now, it does. Now, if I can’t function, Asher⁠—

“Okay,” I whisper. “The redactions are straightforward. I can show you.”

We move back to the table, the beans forgotten all over the counter. I open the laptop and show her the folder. “We’re redacting Voss’s name. I need leverage to get Asher out of GSD custody, and this will do it. If I threaten to release the unredacted files—blast his name all over the news—I think…he’ll agree to my terms.”

I don’t tell her those terms might involve me voluntarily turning myself in. Or what happens once I do.

Inara reaches out, but her hand stops an inch from mine before she rests it on the table next to the laptop. Like Asher, she’s adjusting around me. Easily. No fuss. No judgment. Just…acceptance.

“If I survive this,” I say quietly. “Maybe we try that whole”—I swallow hard—“friendship thing.”