Rain was good for hiding things.
It blurred headlights, swallowed footsteps, turned whole streets into shimmering, distorted mirrors. It washed blood off sidewalks, mascara off cheeks, and made even the most dangerous city corners look almost soft from far away.
From behind the fogged‑up window of the safehouse car, Ariel watched the rain turn the world into watercolor.
Her fingers tightened on the seatbelt across her chest. Beneath the borrowed hoodie, the bandage at her side tugged with every breath,a dull, dragging ache that pulsed in time with the rhythm of the wipers.
"You don't have to do this today," Chris said quietly from the driver's seat.
He hadn't started the engine yet. The car sat in a narrow alley, boxed in by damp brick and the distant hum of traffic. A halo of neon from the main road smeared red and blue across the windshield.
Ariel kept her gaze on the glass. "If we wait, he'll come looking," she said. "I'd rather walk in than be dragged."
"Again," he added softly.
Her lips pressed together. "Again."
Chris watched her for a moment. His hands rested loose on the steering wheel, but his shoulders were coiled, ready.
"You sure you don't want Reed here?" he asked. "He's good at making ugly conversations feel… less fatal."
"He's good at making people feel like chess pieces," she replied. "I already have one of those in my life."
Fair.
She could hear Reed's voice even now, from earlier in the clinic hallway, when they'd gone over the plan one last time.
Neutral ground. No weapons visible. One door, one exit. Arlo comes with no more than two men. You go in awake, not tied. You sit where you want. You leave when you say.
The "no weapons visible" part had made Reed smirk. "Doesn't mean we won't have them," he'd said. "It just means he has to pretend he believes we don't."
Now, in the quiet alley, the rules felt thin.
"What if he doesn't come?" she asked.
Chris snorted faintly. "He'll come."
"Because of me?" The question slipped out before she could stop it.
"Because you're the only thing he doesn't understand right now," Chris said. "He hates questions without answers."
He turned the key. The engine hummed to life, a low vibration under her feet.
Outside, the rain intensified, streaking the windshield.
Ariel dragged her eyes away from her reflection,a pale ghost behind glass—and looked at him. "What did he say?" she asked. "When you called."
Chris's mouth tightened. "He didn't say much. Just asked where, when, and how badly you were hurt."
"And you told him?"
"I told him you were alive," Chris said. "That you wanted to see him somewhere that wasn't his kingdom. That if he wanted you back at all, he'd have to show up without turning the place into a war zone."
"And he agreed?" she whispered.
"He said, 'Name the place.'" Chris paused. "Then he said, 'Tell her she chose the hard road. That sounds like her.'"
Her chest clenched. She stared at her hands, at the faint marks still visible on her wrists, the ghosts of plastic cutting into skin.
"He sounded…" she began, then swallowed. "What did he sound like?"
Chris thought for a moment. "Controlled. Angry. Scared."
She let out a short breath that hurt. "He doesn't get to be scared."
"No," Chris said. "But he is."
They pulled out of the alley and merged into the slow, rain‑thick traffic. The city slid past in streaks of light and shadow, familiar and distant all at once.
She watched a bus rumble by, its windows fogged, silhouettes blurred behind them. Somewhere out there were people who thought the worst thing that could happen today was missing a stop or losing an umbrella.
Lucky.
"Where are we meeting him?" she asked.
Chris's jaw flexed. "You sure you want to know now?"
"Keeping me in the dark hasn't worked great so far," she said.
He conceded that with a nod. "Old storage depot near the docks. We've used it before for drops. One big room, high ceiling, no easy sniper points. Reed vetted it. We'll be there first."
"We?" she echoed.
"You and me," he said. "Reed's people will be outside. Not inside. That was one of Arlo's conditions."
"And his conditions?" she asked.
Chris glanced at her, then back at the road. "You walk in on your own feet. No Reed. No visible guns. No recording devices. No one touches you."
Her fingers twitched.
"No one touches me," she repeated.
"He knows," Chris said quietly. "That's a line he doesn't get to cross again."
She stared at the blurred city, at the way the rain turned stoplights into bleeding stars.
"I still hate him," she said.
"Good," Chris replied. "Makes you harder to break."
They drove in silence for a few minutes, the wipers ticking a steady metronome over their shared thoughts.
As they neared the docks, the air changed. More salt, more rust, less neon. The roads grew emptier, the buildings taller and more tired.
Chris pulled off the main road and wound through a lattice of warehouses and fenced lots until he turned into another narrow lane, this one ending at a wide, squat building with boarded windows and a corrugated metal roof.
The depot.
He killed the engine but didn't move to open his door.
"You've still got a window to change your mind," he said.
Ariel unbuckled her seatbelt slowly. Her side throbbed in protest.
"Chris," she said.
"Yeah?"
"If this goes wrong—"
"It won't," he cut in.
She gave him a look.
He exhaled. "If it goes wrong, I get you out."
"And if you can't?"
"Then I make sure he doesn't walk out either," he said, voice flat.
"Don't die for me," she murmured.
"Wasn't planning to," he said. "Just… willing to."
Something hot and sharp pressed behind her eyes. She looked away, fingers fumbling with the door handle.
The rain hit her like a sheet of cold needles when she stepped out. She hunched deeper into the hoodie, pulling the hood up, and followed Chris toward the depot.
Reed was a shadow near the side entrance, hood up, hands in his jacket pockets. Two other indistinct shapes lingered farther back in the gloom, watchful but distant.
"You're early," Reed said.
"So is my anxiety," Ariel replied. Her voice shook only a little.
Reed's gaze swept over her, landing briefly on the way she favored her left side. "You sure you're up for walking in there instead of being wheeled?"
"If I go in on a stretcher, he wins before we start," she said.
Reed's mouth twitched. "Can't argue with that."
He slid a key into the side door and shoved it open. The hinges groaned in protest.
Inside, the depot was cavernous and echoing, the air cold and smelling faintly of oil and dust. Shafts of pale daylight leaked in through cracks high in the walls, smeared by the rain outside. A single strip of industrial lights buzzed overhead.
Footsteps sounded hollow on the concrete as they walked.
Chris led her toward the center of the space, where three metal folding chairs sat facing each other in a loose triangle.
"You're there," he said, nodding to one chair. "He's there. I'm here."
"A little on the nose," Reed muttered from behind them.
"Symbolism helps," Chris said.
Ariel sank carefully into the indicated chair, biting back a hiss as her stitches pulled. She kept her spine straight, her hands loose on her knees.
"Where will you be?" she asked Reed.
"Everywhere," he said. "Nowhere. Don't worry about me. Worry about what you're going to say first."
She thought about that.
"I don't know yet," she admitted.
"That's okay," Chris said. "You don't have to rehearse. Just don't let him control the script."
Reed tapped something on his phone, checked the time, then nodded once. "He's five minutes out."
Her heart lurched. Five minutes. Four. Three.
"You can still walk back out," Reed said softly, surprising her. "Right now. Before any of this touches you again."
Ariel looked around the empty depot, at the rain‑streaked daylight, at the chairs waiting like placeholders in a play.
"If I walk out now," she said, "he'll still be here. In my head. In my nightmares. In every quiet moment. This is the only way he doesn't get to be a ghost too."
Reed studied her, then inclined his head. "Then I'll be where you need me to be."
He melted back into the shadows, the echo of his footsteps fading.
The depot swallowed the silence after he left. Every drip from the roof, every distant horn from the docks outside, sounded huge.
Chris checked his watch again, then looked at her.
"Ready?" he asked.
"No," she said. "But I'm here."
He nodded. "That's enough."
The crunch of tires outside reached them first, muffled by the rain. Then doors opening. Voices. Footsteps,calm, unhurried, confident.
Ariel's palms went slick.
The side door they had used didn't move.
Instead, the larger front loading door rattled, then rolled up halfway with a screech of metal, letting in a spill of gray light and the blurred outline of a black car idling just beyond.
Three figures stepped under the lip of the door.
Two of them flanked the center man, keeping a respectful half‑pace behind. They were tall, broad, dressed in dark coats that hid whatever weapons they absolutely had.
The man between them didn't need a coat to command attention.
He stepped forward into the depot, rain dripping from the edges of his curls, shirt open at the throat, hands empty and visible.
Arlo.
He crossed the wide space with that same unhurried prowl she remembered from the bookshop, from her living room, from the nightmare of the warehouse room. Like every inch of ground belonged to him the moment his shoe touched it.
His gaze found her from halfway across the floor.
The rest of the world narrowed.
He didn't look at Chris. He didn't sweep the room for threats first. His eyes locked onto Ariel and stayed there, dark and unreadable, dragging over her face, her posture, the faint tension in her jaw, the way she held herself a little protective over one side.
He stopped a few feet away from the triangle of chairs.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then he spoke.
"Little girl," Arlo said softly. "You look like hell."
Ariel's fingers curled against her knees. Her heart pounded so hard it hurt.
"Whose fault is that?" she asked.
The corner of his mouth lifted—something like a smile, something like a wince.
"Depends who you ask," he said.
Chris stepped forward, placing himself just off to her right, a deliberate buffer without quite blocking Arlo's view.
"No weapons," he reminded quietly.
Arlo didn't spare him a glance. "Search me if it makes you feel better."
"Later," Chris said. "Sit."
The word might have sounded like an order from anyone else. From Chris, it was almost an appeal.
Arlo's gaze flicked to him then, cool and sharp. For a second, something old and unspoken crackled between them.
Then Arlo broke it with a small nod and lowered himself into the chair opposite Ariel, every movement controlled.
The depot seemed to hold its breath.
Up close, he looked both exactly the same and completely different. The same face she'd memorized over hot chocolate and bookshop afternoons. The same eyes that had watched a car crash with merciless detachment. New shadows sat in the hollows beneath those eyes now. A faint graze tugged at his collarbone, disappearing under his shirt.
He looked tired.
He also looked like the dangerous center of gravity he'd always been.
"You walked in on your own," he said, studying her. "Stitches and all."
"You came without burning the place down," she countered. "Growth all around."
For the first time, genuine amusement flickered across his features. It didn't stay.
Silence stretched, taut.
"This wasn't my idea," he said finally. "Neutral ground. No leash. That's not how I usually do… retrieval."
"'Retrieval,'" she repeated. "Nice word for dragging someone back into their own nightmare."
"If this is your nightmare, little girl," Arlo said quietly, "you chose to wake up in it."
Her throat tightened. "Maybe I'm tired of dreaming alone."
Something passed through his eyes at that. Brief. Vulnerable. Gone.
Chris shifted slightly, tension radiating off him.
"You wanted to see me," Arlo said. "You're seeing me. So say what you came to say."
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
So many words crowded her tongue,accusations, memories, questions that had lived in her bones since the first blindfold, since Berry, since Oliver.
What came out was small and sharp and truer than any speech she could have rehearsed.
"Why?" Ariel asked.
Just that.
Arlo's jaw flexed.
"Be more specific," he said after a moment. "I've done a lot of things that qualify."
"Why all of it," she said. "The bookshop. The hot chocolate. The night you held me while I cried about my parents. The car. The warehouse. Berry. Oliver. The chair. The phone. The building. Why did you make yourself my safest place just to turn it into the worst one?"
The words shook as they left her, but they didn't break.
Arlo didn't look away.
Because for the first time since either of them had stepped into each other's orbit, the storm wasn't on his terms.
And how he chose to answer that one, small word would decide whether Ariel Smith had walked back into the arms of salvation—
or straight into the centre of a darkness that wanted her as its one, unforgivable exception.
Arlo didn't answer at once.
He just watched her, fingers loosely linked, elbows resting on his knees. The buzzing depot lights painted a faint halo along his curls and left his eyes in shadow.
Then, finally:
"Because you were supposed to be a line item," he said. "And you refused to stay that small."
Ariel stared. "That's not an answer."
"It's the only kind you get with men like me," he replied. "Layers. No clean edges."
"Try," she said. Her voice wobbled, but she forced steel into it. "Just once in your life, try a straight line."
He exhaled slowly, as if weighing how much truth the room could hold.
"Fine," he said. "You want the first why? I wanted leverage."
Her stomach twisted, even expecting it. "For who?"
"For people who thought they could move pieces off my board without asking," he said. "Harry. Berry. Others you never met."
She flinched at their names. "You keep talking about them like they were chess players, not my family."
"In my world, they were both," Arlo said. "He ran routes. She cleaned numbers. They were very good at pretending to be harmless with you in the middle like a storybook distraction."
"You're lying," she whispered. "Berry hated math."
He shrugged one shoulder. "People hate a lot of things and still do them for love. Or for fear."
"And the bookshop?" she asked, fighting the rising nausea. "Was that leverage too? You walked in that day because you needed a neat little pressure point?"
His gaze caught hers, something softer and more dangerous flickering there. "No," he said quietly. "That part was an accident."
She blinked. "What?"
"I sent someone to check on you after Harry started getting ideas above his station," Arlo said. "Standard due diligence. They came back and said, 'She's a bookshop girl. Smiles at everyone. Buys flowers from a kid who can't keep his shoelaces tied.'" A faint smile ghosted across his lips. "It sounded… improbable."
"So you came to see the freak yourself?" she snapped.
"I came to confirm you existed," he said. "And to decide how to use you."
The words landed like blows, even though she'd known. Suspected. Felt it in every too‑perfect moment.
"And?" she forced out.
"And I walked in," Arlo said, "and you asked if I wanted something 'memorable'."
Her mind flashed back without permission—The Melody of Love on the counter, his hand brushing hers, the way the air had gone still.
"That was nothing," she said quickly. "Just a recommendation."
"It was a thesis," he said. "You told me what you believed about love in the first five minutes. No one does that. Not in my circles. They lie, or they flirt, or they dodge. You looked me in the eye and said love should hurt and heal and leave marks."
Heat stung her cheeks. "That doesn't justify anything."
"I didn't say it did," Arlo replied. "I'm answering your why. I walked in for leverage. I stayed because you were… inconvenient."
"Inconvenient," she repeated, the word bitter on her tongue.
"You made me curious," he said simply. "And curiosity makes me stupid."
"Stupid enough to what?" she demanded. "To follow me home? To hold me while I cried? To plan how to break me while I slept on your shoulder?"
Chris shifted slightly, weight rocking to the balls of his feet. He hadn't spoken since Arlo sat, but now his jaw worked, like he wanted to cut in and knew better.
Arlo's gaze flickered to him for a second, then back to Ariel. "Stupid enough," he said, "to bring you closer instead of leaving you on that sidewalk."
"You saved me from a car so you could feed me to something worse," she said. "That's not mercy, Arlo. That's… grooming."
His lashes lowered, a brief shield. "I saved you from a car because my driver wasn't watching his mirrors," he said. "That part was reflex. Everything after that was a choice."
"Yours," she said.
"Yes," he agreed. "Mine."
Silence pressed in around them, heavy with everything unsaid.
"And the warehouse?" she said at last. "The blindfold. The chair. Berry. Oliver. Was that curiosity, too?"
"No," he said. "That was fear."
She almost laughed. "You don't get to say that word. Not to me."
"I'm not asking for sympathy, little girl," he said, voice flat. "I'm telling you the math. Harry tried to cut my throat with my own knife. Berry moved money I didn't authorize. Oliver disappeared off my map the same week you started having nightmares bigger than your parents' car crash. My world tightened. Yours was already inside the circle. That makes you either a risk… or a test."
Her fingers dug into her knees. "A test for what?"
"For whether there was anything in me left that could choose something other than violence," he said quietly. "Spoiler: there wasn't. Not enough."
Her heart stuttered.
"So you tied me up," she said slowly, "because you were afraid of yourself."
"I tied you up," Arlo said, "because I was afraid of how much I wanted to drag you out of all of it and burn everything else down."
The words hit her harder than any insult could have. For a heartbeat, the depot seemed to tilt.
"You killed my best friend," she said, every syllable shaking. "You made me watch. You flooded my life with blood and then have the nerve to sit there and talk about wanting to save me?"
His jaw clenched. "I never planned for you to see Berry die."
"That's supposed to make it better?" she choked.
"No," he said. "It's supposed to be another piece of the answer you asked for."
He leaned forward a fraction, elbows biting into his thighs, gaze pinned to hers.
"Harry set that crash in motion long before my men forced his car off the road," Arlo said. "He lied to everyone: to me, to Berry, to you. He moved money he shouldn't have touched, slipped information to people who would've carved you up for parts if they'd realized how much you mattered to him. Berry covered for him until she realized he'd put you in the blast radius too."
Ariel's head spun. "What are you talking about?"
"He was going to trade you," Arlo said. "Small, neat transaction. Wipe his debt. Hand over the bookshop girl who knew too much about too many disappearances without realizing it."
Nausea rolled through her. "No."
"Yes," he said. "You think some shadowy voice just decided to call Berry and threaten Harry out of nowhere? That was his buyer reminding him of the clock."
Her mind flashed back to that day—the hidden overseas number, Berry's pale face, the note on melting ice cream.
"He would never—" she began.
"He loved you," Arlo cut in. "In his way. And he loved survival more. That's the part you never saw. Berry did. Eventually."
Tears burned hot and unwanted. "You're rewriting them into villains to feel better about what you did."
"I don't need to rewrite anything," he said coldly. "I have recordings. Messages. Bank trails. I could show you every number Berry moved, every call Harry didn't answer, every route where your name came up as 'collateral' in some bored courier's mouth."
"Then why haven't you?" she demanded. "If you're so sure, why didn't you shatter me with proof when you had me tied to a chair and begging you to tell me anything that made sense?"
His lips pressed into a thin line.
"Because," Arlo said, each word careful, "at the time, I was busy keeping you alive. Not convincing you to forgive me."
She blinked, thrown. "Alive from who? You were the one holding the match."
"From the people who wanted to take you out of my hands," he said. "Reed's bosses. Harry's buyers. The ones who love leverage even more than I do and care about you far less."
At the mention of Reed, Chris's shoulders tightened, but he stayed silent.
"So all this," she said, throat raw, "was you… protecting me."
"No," Arlo said. "All this was me protecting what matters to me, in the only brutal, broken ways I knew. You got dragged under because I didn't get there sooner. Because I thought I had time to fix it quietly."
"And you didn't," she said.
"No," he replied. "I didn't."
The admission hung there, strange and heavy.
Ariel swallowed, forcing air into her lungs. The bandage under her hoodie pulled; her side throbbed. "Berry said something," she whispered. "On the phone, before the line cut. She said, 'He's not the one you should be afraid of. He's trying to—' and then she disappeared. Was she talking about you?"
Arlo hesitated.
"Yes," he said. "And no."
"Helpful," she muttered.
"She was afraid of the people on the other end of Harry's little arrangement," Arlo said. "She hated me. She knew what I was. But she also knew that as long as you were under my roof, there were lines even I wouldn't cross."
"You crossed plenty," she said.
His gaze didn't waver. "And yet you're still breathing."
Chris finally spoke, voice low. "She's breathing because Reed's people pulled her out when your building went up."
Arlo's eyes slid to him, a flash of steel. "She's breathing because I ordered the sublevel detonated before they reached the holding floor," he said. "I gave up a very expensive project because I saw her bleed in a hallway and realized—for the first time—that Obsidian Halo could burn and I'd be fine… but if she vanished with it, I wouldn't."
Something in his tone—flat, almost bewildered—made Ariel's chest twist.
"Don't," she said hoarsely. "Don't talk like that. Like I'm some… talisman. Some moral compass you mislaid in a fire."
"You asked why," Arlo said. "I'm giving you the ugliest parts first so you know exactly what you're dealing with."
"And what am I dealing with?" she asked. "A man who loves me enough to burn his empire? Or one who uses my love as a leash?"
His smile was quick and sharp, no humor in it. "You've never loved me," he said. "Not really. You loved who I let you see."
"Don't tell me what I felt," she snapped. "You don't get to own that too."
For the first time, the smallest crack appeared in his composure. His fingers tightened together; a pulse jumped in his jaw.
"Fine," he said softly. "Tell me."
She blinked. "What?"
"Tell me what you felt," Arlo said. "In the bookshop. On your couch. In that room, before the car hit Berry. After. When you woke up in that chair and realized I was the one who'd taken you."
The request knocked the breath from her. "Why?" she whispered.
"Because," he said, "that's the only piece of this I don't already know. Every other variable, I've traced. Every move, every lie, every betrayal. The one thing I can't chart is you."
Chris shifted. "Arlo, this isn't—"
"Stay out of it," Arlo snapped, not taking his eyes off Ariel. "You got her here. Let her speak."
The depot felt suddenly smaller. The air tasted like rust and rain and the metallic tang of old blood.
Ariel's hands trembled. She curled them tighter into fists until her nails bit her palms.
"In the bookshop," she said slowly, "you felt like… a story. Something impossible that slipped between the shelves when no one was looking."
His expression didn't change, but his eyes darkened.
"On my couch," she went on, "you felt like… rest. Like the first deep breath after years of drowning in shallow ones. Like maybe my life hadn't ended in a car by a roadside after all."
The words hurt to say. They always had.
"And in that room?" Arlo asked. "When the blindfold came off?"
"You felt," Ariel said, voice shaking, "like every worst fear I have ever had about being stupid enough to trust someone. You felt like proof that I break things just by loving them. That my parents, Berry, Oliver… all of it was my fault for ever believing I was allowed to be happy."
His jaw clenched hard enough that a muscle jumped. Chris looked like he wanted to hit something.
"And now?" Arlo asked, very quietly. "Looking at me here. No chair. No ties. Just your choice to sit and listen. What do I feel like now?"
She swallowed.
"Like a storm I walked back into on purpose," she whispered. "Because I need to know if there's any shelter in it at all… or if I should finally let it tear me apart and be done."
Silence crashed over them.
Somewhere high in the rafters, a drip fell into a puddle, echoing.
Arlo's eyes closed for a fraction of a second. When he opened them again, the charm was gone. What was left was something raw and sharp and terrifyingly honest.
"You want another straight line?" he asked. "Here it is: I don't deserve to be your shelter."
Her throat tightened.
"But I am," he continued, "the only one who can finish what I started. The only one who can tear out the roots of the thing that took Berry and Oliver and almost took you and make sure it never reaches you again."
"That 'thing' is you," she said.
"It was," he said. "Until you walked in and made me see how much else had wrapped itself around it while I was busy pretending I was in control."
He leaned back slightly, as if giving her space to breathe.
"So here's my why, Ariel," Arlo said. "I made myself your monster because I thought fear was the only language this world understood. You made me wrong simply by refusing to die when I told you to break."
Her pulse roared in her ears. "That's not an apology."
"No," he said. "It's an indictment. Of me. And a question for you."
She braced herself. "What question?"
"Now that you've seen all of this," Arlo said, "what hurts more—the thought of walking away and letting someone else decide my punishment… or staying and watching what happens if you aim that hate of yours in the same direction I do?"
Her breath caught.
"You're asking me to stay," she said.
"I'm asking," he replied, "if you'd rather help dismantle the monster or hand it to men like Reed and live your life wondering what they did with it—and with the parts of me you still don't understand."
Chris drew in a sharp breath.
"Ariel," he said softly, warning and worry tangled together.
Her heart hammered. Her side ached. Her wrists itched with phantom plastic.
"I came here," she said, staring straight at Arlo, "to tell you I hate you."
"I know," he said.
"And I do," she continued. "I hate you for Berry. For Oliver. For every lie. For every time you touched my hand and knew you would one day chain it."
His throat bobbed. "Good."
"But I also came," she whispered, "because some pathetic, stubborn part of me needed you to say out loud that you were wrong. That you chose wrong. That I wasn't crazy for feeling safe with you once."
Their eyes locked, the air between them crackling.
"I was wrong," Arlo said, without hesitation. "I chose wrong. And you were never crazy for seeing something in me that I didn't want to admit existed."
Her vision blurred.
She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
"Okay," Ariel said.
Chris stiffened. "Okay what?"
She dragged her gaze from Arlo to him, then back again.
"Okay," she repeated, voice shaking but clear, "I'll help tear it out. Whatever it is—Halo, Harry's ghosts, Reed's bosses, all of it."
Relief flashed through Arlo's eyes. Quickly buried. "On one condition," she added.
"Name it," he said instantly.
"You don't get to touch me unless I ask," she said. "You don't get to lock doors behind me. You don't get to pull any more strings without telling me where they lead. You don't get to be my lesson. You get to be my… weapon. And when this is done, you don't get to decide what I do with you."
Chris exhaled, low and stunned.
Arlo's lips curved, not in amusement, but in something that looked almost like surrender.
"Deal," he said.
He extended his hand, palm up, empty.
The last time he'd done that, he'd cut her ties.
This time, the choice was hers.
Ariel's fingers twitched once on her knees.
Then, very slowly, she reached out and set her hand in his—not as a girl being claimed, but as the one person in the room finally deciding which way the storm would turn.
Then, very slowly, she reached out and set her hand in his—not as a girl being claimed, but as the one person in the room finally deciding which way the storm would turn.
Arlo's fingers closed around hers, warm and steady. No tightening, no tug. Just contact. An agreement sealed in skin and shared danger.
Chris didn't like it.
Ariel felt it in the way his stance shifted beside her, weight rolling to the balls of his feet, shoulders coiling tighter. He didn't speak, didn't step in, but his body was one held breath away from cutting between them.
She squeezed once, brief, then pulled back, her hand settling in her lap. Lines. Drawn. For him. For herself.
Arlo let go as soon as she did, palm falling open again, empty.
"Good," he said quietly. "Then we hunt."
The words rang in the high, open space of the depot.
"Hunt who, exactly?" Ariel asked, voice rough. "You keep saying 'them' like I know their names."
"You'll know," Arlo replied. "Harry's buyer. The men above Reed's bosses. Anyone who ever spoke your name like it was a bargaining chip."
"Big list," Chris said.
"Smaller than it used to be," Arlo answered, eyes not leaving Ariel's. "I've narrowed it since you went under."
Since you went under.
Since you almost died.
Her pulse stuttered.
"And what happens when we find them?" she pressed.
Arlo's expression didn't soften. "They stop breathing," he said. "But how that happens… that can be your call."
Chris shifted. "You're really handing her that?"
"I took everything else," Arlo said. "She's owed the choice of how this ends."
Ariel swallowed, nausea and a dark, grim satisfaction tangling in her chest.
"You're assuming I'll choose blood," she said.
"I'm assuming you'll choose something honest," Arlo replied. "If that's prison, fine. If it's a bullet, I won't lose sleep."
"You never do," she muttered.
His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "You'd be surprised."
"Enough poetry," Chris cut in. "We need to move. She's fading."
Only then did Ariel notice how light her head felt, how the edges of the room had gone slightly blurred. The adrenaline that had held her upright was ebbing, leaving pain and exhaustion in its wake.
She tried to straighten. Her side protested, a hot rip of sensation under the bandage.
"I'm fine," she said on reflex.
"Liar," Chris said mildly.
Arlo's gaze dipped to the way she pressed her hand over her ribs. His jaw tightened, just enough to betray it.
"We're done for today," he said. "Names and details can wait until you're not about to fall over."
"I'm not—" she started.
Chris shot her a look. "You are," he said. "And the last time you said you weren't, I caught you on the way down."
Bits of memory from the clinic flickered: bright lights, antiseptic, a voice cutting through panic—Look at me, not the walls. Breathe with me. His voice.
Ariel exhaled, too tired to argue properly. "What now?" she asked.
"Now," Arlo said, rising from his chair with controlled grace, "you go somewhere safe."
"Your definition of safe and mine are not the same," she said.
"For once, they might overlap," Chris put in. "You can't go back to your apartment or the shop. They're watched. Everyone who's ever wanted leverage on him"—he jerked his chin at Arlo—"knows where to find you there."
The emptiness where her life had been yawned up at that. The bookshop. Her small apartment. The daffodils on the counter. All of it turned into coordinates on someone else's map.
"So where?" she asked.
"House on the edge of the city," Arlo said. "Not in my name. Not in any ledger that matters. I use it when I need to disappear people I'd rather not see shot in a hallway."
"Reassuring," she said dryly.
"You'll be with Chris," Arlo added. "And one doctor on call. No one else goes in without their say so."
"That's a lot of trust," Chris said slowly.
"That's me," Arlo replied. "Changing the rules. Try to keep up."
He looked at Ariel again. "If you don't want him there," he said, nodding toward Chris, "say so. I'll assign someone else."
The offer surprised her. For all his talk of control, Arlo was giving her a choice that mattered: who watched her back when she slept.
She glanced at Chris.
He stood just off to her side, not crowding, not touching. Ready, though. Always ready. The worry in his eyes was poorly masked by the sarcasm in his mouth.
"Do you want to babysit me?" she asked, trying to make it a joke.
He didn't smile. "I want you not dead," he said. "If that looks like babysitting, I can live with the downgrade."
There it was again—that intensity. Too much for a handler. Too personal for a man who'd only known her a handful of chaotic days.
It should have pushed her away.
Instead, it made something in her chest loosen by a fraction.
"I'd rather it be you than a stranger," she admitted quietly.
Something flickered across his face—quick, sharp, almost painful. He hid it fast.
"Then that's settled," Arlo said. "He goes with you."
Chris shot him a look. "You're not coming in the same car?"
"I'll follow," Arlo said. "Different route. Different timing. No point putting the entire disaster response team in one place."
"Disaster response," Ariel echoed. "Is that what we are now?"
Arlo's gaze warmed faintly. "You," he said, "are the problem set. We're the ones who finally realized brute force isn't the only way to solve it."
It was almost a compliment. In Arlo's world, it might have been the highest kind.
He stepped back, giving them space. "Get her out of here," he told Chris. "Use the side alley. Jonah will bring the car around."
"Your man?" Chris asked.
"One I trust," Arlo said. "He knows not to talk, breathe, or blink too loud around her."
"I'm not that fragile," Ariel muttered.
"You're not," Arlo agreed. "They are."
The strange, sideways logic almost made sense—people around her were the ones in danger now, not just from enemies, but from the way Arlo and Chris both agreed she was off‑limits in ways their world rarely allowed.
Chris moved behind her chair and angled it so she could lever herself up using the table edge.
"Ready?" he asked.
"No," she said. "But I'm going to stand anyway."
He huffed a quiet breath that wasn't quite a laugh. "That's the spirit."
He offered his forearm, elbow bent, like a gentleman in an old film—not touching her until she chose. After a beat, she wrapped her fingers around the sleeve, feeling the solid muscle beneath.
"Slow," he murmured as she pushed herself upright.
Pain shot through her side, sharp and angry. Her knees threatened to give. Her grip on him tightened without meaning to.
His other hand hovered an inch from her back, tracking her balance, ready to catch but not assuming.
"You're all right," Chris said quietly. "I've got you."
She hated how much those three words helped. Hated how right his hand felt where it would land if she stumbled.
"You always talk like this?" she asked through gritted teeth. "Or am I just special?"
"Don't get used to it," he said. "I charge extra for reassurance."
"Put it on my tab," she muttered.
Arlo watched them, something calculating and unreadable in his eyes. Not jealousy—not exactly. More like he was cataloguing another variable he hadn't planned for.
"Chris," Arlo said.
Chris looked up.
"If she says stop, you stop," Arlo told him. "Even if you think she's wrong. Even if it blows a hole in whatever plan you've got in your head."
"That goes both ways," Chris said. "If you push past what she's agreed to, I walk her out. You don't get a second chance at that."
The air crackled, a different kind of tension now—two dangerous men drawing lines not around each other, but around her.
Ariel swallowed. "I'm still here," she pointed out. "Maybe include me in the rules of my own life?"
Both pairs of eyes swung back to her.
"Fine," Arlo said. "Say your rule."
She thought of chairs, of blindfolds, of nights where her voice had meant nothing against the weight of other people's choices.
"No locked doors," she said. "Not around me. Not behind me. If there's a lock, I'm the one who decides when it turns."
Chris nodded immediately. "Done."
Arlo's agreement came a half‑second later. "Done," he echoed.
"And no touching unless I start it," she added, heart racing faster at her own boldness. "Or unless I'm unconscious or actively bleeding out, in which case… fine, you get a pass."
"That's generous," Chris murmured.
Arlo's mouth curved, but his voice stayed serious. "Agreed," he said. "No more… uninvited proximity."
The phrase dredged up memories of his hand on her throat, his breath at her ear. She forced herself not to flinch.
"Good," she said. "Then let's go before I change my mind and throw something at both of you."
Chris's lips twitched. "She's going to be fun to brief," he told Arlo.
"You'll live," Arlo replied. "Try not to frighten her with your bedtime stories."
"Pretty sure that's your job," Chris shot back.
"Out," Arlo said, but there was a thread of something almost like amusement in his tone.
They started toward the side door, Reed's earlier route. Each step pulled at Ariel's side, but Chris matched her pace, slowing when she did, never pushing.
At the threshold, she glanced back over her shoulder.
Arlo stood where she'd left him, in the middle of the echoing depot, alone in all that empty space. For a moment, the weight of everything between them pressed down—bookshops and hot chocolate and blindfolds and fire.
His eyes met hers. No commands. No smirk. Just a look that said, You chose this. I won't pretend you didn't.
Ariel dipped her chin once. Barely a nod. Then turned away.
The door creaked as Chris pushed it open, letting in the rush of rain‑cooled air and the muted roar of the city outside.
"What now?" she asked as they stepped into the narrow alley.
"Now?" Chris said. "Now we get you somewhere with a real bed and painkillers that aren't being rationed like gold. Then we start making lists."
"Of enemies?" she guessed.
"Of enemies," he said. "Of questions. Of answers you deserve. And of all the ways this can go wrong so we can try to keep ahead of at least half of them."
"That's optimistic," she said.
He slanted her a look. "You're the optimist here," he said. "I'm just the one who learned how to carry people who insist on walking into storms."
"How many?" she asked.
He hesitated. "Enough to know I'm not letting you be one more I lose."
The words slipped out, raw, before he could sand them down. He looked away, jaw tightening.
Ariel's grip on his arm tightened, not from pain this time.
"You just met me," she said quietly.
"Feels like longer," he answered before he could stop himself.
Rain tapped along the metal siding nearby. The alley opened onto a side street where a dark sedan waited, engine purring. The driver stood by the rear door, head bowed against the drizzle.
"Chris," Ariel said.
He paused, hand hovering near the car door.
"Yeah?"
"You're weird," she said. "But… thank you. For standing there. For… all of it."
Something in his expression eased. "Get used to it," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."
She didn't know why that promise settled under her skin the way it did. Only that, for the first time since the nightmare began, the storm ahead didn't look quite so impossible.
She had a monster who called himself hers.
She had a man who cared more than he was willing to explain.
And for the first time, she had her hand on the steering wheel of the disaster they'd all built around her.
The sedan's door swung open.
Ariel Smith drew a breath, stepped forward, and climbed in—toward the safehouse, toward the hunt, and toward whatever version of herself would walk back out when this was over.