11 Austin

Austin

I was up most of the night.

Couldn’t say why, though.

I was completely drained from the events of the last few days, but yet I tossed and turned all night long.

It was no wonder I was grumpy by the time the sun came up and I forced my heavy lids open because it was painfully obvious I wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep.

I ran my hand through my hair as a long sigh escaped me. This shit just kept getting deeper and deeper. Where did it end?

While I didn’t have an answer for that, I did vow that I would see it to the end. I would be there when the last of the organization crumbled. I didn’t think those people deserved to live, and if I had my way, they wouldn’t.

Was it wrong for me to, in a sense, play God?

Probably.

Some would say most definitely.

I believed that some people were so fucked up and they shouldn’t get to go on breathing. The people who ruined other people’s lives without a care. The ones who thrived and relished in the disgusting things they did.

With a heavy sigh, I pushed to stand. I was going to have to face Ford sooner or later, so there was no sense in wasting time. Besides, there was coffee in the kitchen, which I desperately needed.

After making myself decent, I headed downstairs. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him sitting at the small kitchen table, but I was. He’d already made a pot of coffee, and I mumbled my thanks as I poured a cup.

I spun around, leaning my butt against the counter as I took a tentative sip of coffee. Shit was hot, but I really needed that bitter taste on my tongue to snap me awake.

Seeing him sitting there clashed with the blips of my childhood that I didn’t want to erase.

Spending summers here had been one of my favorite things, even though I pretended to hate it not long after I hit those moody teen years. Grandpa would take me hunting in the morning, and Grandma would ask me to help her in the garden in the afternoon. Hell, that table Ford was sitting at had many memories attached to it. Sitting with Grandma, a bowl of peas in each of our laps. We would snap those pea pods, releasing the little icky green balls that I knew we’d be eating with dinner, while she told me all about her “shows”. Things I could never follow along with. She talked about those people like they were her friends, which made me laugh.

I blinked out of my thoughts only to find that my eyes were on Ford.

He looked lost in thought. I watched him as he stared blankly at the rim of the coffee mug in front of him, his hand wrapped around it as if he needed something to hold on to, something to ground him. The minutes ticked on in silence, and I started to feel a little strange because I couldn’t seem to tear my gaze away from him. He looked sad. Maybe even a bit broken.

When he inhaled like he was preparing to speak, I found myself alert. My body leaned in his direction, almost as if I was ready to hang on to every word he spoke.

As I realized this, I snapped myself back, forcing every muscle to go on lockdown.

“He has two kids. One of them just had their first kid.” He sighed and shook his head. I knew right away he was talking about Lipton. “His wife sends me cards on my birthday and Christmas.” He let out a humorless laugh. “I mean, it shouldn’t shock me, right? Not with the things I deal with every day on the job. Not with the things I’ve been trained for. But, when it’s people you know, people you’re close to, it hits harder, I guess.”

“I get it,” I said flatly.

I set my cup on the counter so I could hide the shaking in my hands. Was it because that familiar rage was attempting to escape again? Or was it because I was so close to telling Ford the one thing I wish I could erase from my history, from my fucking DNA, just to let him know that he wasn’t alone and I did truly understand how he was feeling?

His head lifted and his eyes instantly locked onto mine.

My heart dropped because I could see it clear as day in his expression. I wouldn’t need to confess anything. Wouldn’t need to tell him the ugly truth about who I was.

He already knew.

How long had he known? The whole time we’d been together on the run? Before then? Since the moment Reed recruited me?

He opened his mouth, but I couldn’t bear to hear what he had to say. Those words of either sympathy or guilt or pity, I wanted nothing to do with them.

I had just started to let myself relax a little around the agent, and there was a huge part of me that didn’t want to ruin it.

“Don’t,” I said bitterly. “I can see you already know, so we don’t need to talk about the monster I was bred from. Just know that I understand everything you’re feelin’ right now.”

Rage simmered to the surface as he continued to look like he wanted to say something.

“Off fuckin’ limits,” I growled, my gaze cold as I stared him down. I wasn’t even joking about this.

His mouth snapped shut but he didn’t look away from me. I tried my hardest not to squirm under his microscope gaze. After a long, tortuous moment, he gave me a firm nod, and I let out a long breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

“How’s your leg feeling? Do you need me to look at it?” he asked, making my head snap back in surprise.

“It’s fine,” I said. Confusion filled my tone and the expression on my face. “Why would I need you to look at it? Are you a doctor?”

He snorted and shook his head. “No, but I imagine it’s not an easy spot to see. I could check for infection.”

My eyes narrowed as I studied him. I really didn’t know what the fuck to think.

“I’m good,” I told him. “It’s healing fine.”

“Okay,” he said, looking down at the table.

“Okay, then.” I continued to watch him.

There were things he didn’t want to talk about just like I had shit I refused to dig up. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the luxury of pretending his shit didn’t exist. And he knew it. I could see the weight of it in his nearly defeated expression.

“What’s the next step? How do we take him down and make him pay?” he asked, eyes cold.

“Well, now that they’ve likely cut your access, it would help if we had someone on the inside.” His face said he didn’t like where this was going. “If we could get our hands on some files Lipton might have that he’s not supposed to have. Or if we’re able to prove he’s been erasing shit and using his position to—”

“Yeah, I get it,” he said bitterly, like the idea of someone using their power to do such fucked up things was too disgusting for him to even hear about.

I could already tell the next question out of my mouth wouldn’t be one he’d like, but it had to be asked.

“Do you think you might have someone who could get us in?” I cringed, feeling like shit for asking, but it was going to take an asteroid to bring down this mountain. We needed all the help we could get.

“I need to take some time to figure out who I can trust,” he said, running a hand through his hair.

He looked ruggedly handsome even in his hopeless state, but in a distinguished way. The hard lines on his face hinted at stories. Told of a man who thought too much. Of someone who saw things in his surroundings that others wouldn’t even look for. His dark brown eyes held a sadness that gave away his pain. Gave away all the things he’d seen in his lifetime. They projected the strength he used to get through every single day.

I didn’t think I’d ever seen someone so beautifully raw before. So silently strong and emotionally open at the same time.

Those thoughts gave me pause. It didn’t seem like a normal thought someone would have in this type of situation, and even less so for me. Before I could question what the fuck was going on with me, he began talking again.

“I don’t think my team is compromised, but I need to take a step back and look at them with new eyes to be sure. If I think it’s safe, I’ll contact one of them and they should be able to get what we need with some help.” He sighed heavily. “Even if I feel confident enough to reach out to at least one of them, they won’t have as much clearance as I do. I’m not sure how we’d get around that.”

I smirked as I said, “If we could have a way in, I think we might have a few people who could find their way around.”

“Ah, your hackers,” he said with a small laugh and a sad shake of his head. “Then why haven’t they—”

“It’s not like they haven’t thought of that before. It’s just, apparently not as easy as TV shows and movies make it out to be, or so Milo likes to toss out there. Also, he likes to remind us that we are trying not to make any waves, so he’s been super reluctant to fuck with the FBI’s security systems.”

“That makes sense.” His head nodded slowly, his vision cloudy as if he was deep in thought and only half listening to me. “Like I said, I need time to think.”

A long moment of silence slipped by. I couldn’t help but watch him. The way his brows furrowed, then furrowed some more the deeper he thought about… well, whatever the hell he was thinking about. The way his gaze would sharpen, then go hazy again. It was like he could see the whole world right there in the hole he was blindly staring into my chest.

As strange as it was, I wanted to be in his head. I was desperate to know what or who made his face grow hard and relax and then tighten again.

“Was there something else?” he asked, his eyes blinked rapidly as he turned his gaze to me. “What else can I do?”

“It’ll help to know everything you do. No matter how little the detail might seem, we have to analyze it. We have to take his past moves, figure out what he was also doing at the same time, and use that to figure out his next move.” I paused, reaching back to grab my mug again. I quickly raised it to my lips and took a long sip. Ahhh, that was the good stuff. “Then we flip the script without him even realizing it. Instead of being three steps behind, we’re going to take him by surprise.”

His lips lifted in a small smile. I liked that he didn’t seem as intense and burdened as he had a minute ago. I had this strange urge to keep him in this mood for as long as I was able to.

“Seems simple enough,” he said.

I snorted and rolled my eyes.

“Easy-peasy. Piece of pie. No problem.”

“Pie? I thought it was cake,” he said with a half smirk and an amused twinkle in his eyes.

“I’m from Texas,” I did my best not to cringe as I spoke. “It’s always pie.”

“Why not just say it’s easy as pie?” he shot back playfully.

“I got one better for ya,” I said, letting my country boy accent out willingly for just a moment. “No hill for a stepper.”

“What?” he said, eyes blinking like he couldn’t quite comprehend how the words I strung together made a coherent sentence.

“I’m just saying, we’ll do it. You’ve got a team behind you. A good one, if I do say so myself.” I shot him a cocky grin. Yeah, I knew most of the heavy work would be done by Remy, Milo, and Kyle, but that wasn’t the point. “We’ll get through this.”

A soft smile overtook his face.

It kinda made my chest feel funny. Like his smile was causing my heart to warm, which was super weird. Was this like pride? Heart pride? That sounded strange. I’d done something that made him feel less stressed. Less afraid. Less… backed into a corner without a way out.

Now that I’d done that, I knew there was no going back. I’d have to be a man of my word.

Maybe it wasn’t going to be easy, but it was doable. And we were a fucking badass team that had taken down hundreds of people already. We’d taken out what had to have been half of their organization at this point.

As long as we didn’t give up, we could end this.