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My fingers dig into his jaw, thumbs grinding into his cheeks, forcing him to look at me. My hands are shaking so badly I feel it in my teeth, but I don’t let go.

“You don’t get to say my name.” My voice shakes so hard it turns cruel. “Not after you watched her walk straight to them.”

His pulse jumps beneath my palm.

That should scare me.

Maybe it does.

Maybe some part of me knows I’ve got my hand on the throat of a man who could break me before I finish breathing, and still the only thing I can feel is Cass. Cass walking into the dark. Cass calling my name through static. Cass somewhere I can’t reach because everyone keeps deciding what I’m strong enough to know.

Then Malek’s hands come up and close around my wrists. He doesn’t rip me off him. Doesn’t throw me back. Doesn’t punish me for putting my hands where no one is allowed to put them.

But he doesn’t let me keep him there either.

His grip is iron and heat, stopping me before grief turns my fingers into claws, before rage makes me into something I’ll have to recognize later when the screaming stops.

“I warned her,” he says.

The words hit wrong. Not like an excuse, but like a door opening onto a room I didn’t know was there.

My anger falters, just enough for something colder to slip through.

Because he doesn’t sound defensive. He sounds like he’s been carrying those three words in his mouth for days and they’ve cut him every time he swallowed them.

I laugh—broken and ugly. “Oh, fuck you.”

I strain forward, trying to shove his face closer again, but he holds me exactly where I am, rain pouring down our arms, muscles locked.

“You didn’t warn her to save her,” I spit. “You warned her so you wouldn’t have to choose.”

His eyes go dark.

“No.” His voice comes out rough, almost furious, but not at me. “I warned her because they were already watching you.”

The words hit like a slap.

“I had eyes on me for months,” he continues, voice cutting through the rain. “Routes closing. Markers moved. Scripture turning your way.” His grip tightens just enough to hurt. “They weren’t hunting Cass. They were circling you.”

“They needed her voice.” His grip tightens around my wrists, not enough to hurt. Enough to keep me there for the truth. “Not her body.”

For a second, I don’t understand.

Then the radio crackles again in my memory. Cass saying my name like a hook dragged through the dark. Cass crying where I could hear her. Cass turned into a doorway they knew I’d walk through barefoot if she sounded broken enough.

My throat tightens around the shape of Cass’s name, but I don’t say it. If I do, I’ll hear her through the static again. I’ll hear the hurt they put in her mouth because they knew I’d follow it anywhere.

“They don’t know me,” I say, and the truth of it turns cold before it leaves my tongue. “Not really.”

Malek’s grip doesn’t loosen.

“But they know you.”

Something in his face changes.

Not surprise.

Confirmation.