Page 20 of Sherwood
If we defined treason as we ought to define it—as betraying thepeopleof a nation, as betraying that nation’s best self, as seeking power at the cost of safety and freedom and honesty—then what those agencies were doing was treason full stop.
The problem was that Rafe de Lacy—the half-British boy who’d joined the Army the day after 9/11 and who’d dedicated his entire life to this country—saw my leaving as the real treason instead.
It hadn’t gone well.
And we were at the same impasse today. Except somehow the last person in the world I’d wanted involved was in the middle of it.
“Don’t use her, Rafe. I’m asking you. Please.”
“And then what should I do? Go back to Lackland and tell him that I found you, but leveraging a full recovery of your machines and an inventory of your co-conspirators involved your ex-girlfriend and I decided to respect your romantic history instead? At the price of our national security?”
“She’s not my ex-girlfriend,” I corrected, “and I’m not telling you to do that, because I already know you’d never do that. I’m asking you to find another way instead. Because she’s better than this. She’s…”
We both looked down at her, sleeping on the bed like a fairy-tale princess, one pale hand hanging off the edge. Her lips were parted in sleep; I could see a small blotch of blue ink on her ring finger, likely from a rogue fountain pen. I knew from shadowing her emails today that she’d spent her morning in the mycelial research lab and her afternoon finalizing her acquisition of a small firm specializing in algal biofuel. At only twenty-three, she ran her family’s green tech corporation with a vision and determination that bordered on apostolic.
Did he know that?
Did he know that this pretty, elegant submissive was already changing the world? Fighting investors, politicians, shareholders, and rivals? Andwinning?
“She’s good,” Rafe said, so quietly that I barely heard him. I shot my gaze over to his face. He was still looking at her, and the expression he wore then was like nothing I’d ever seen on his face. It was almost awed. Almost tender. “She’s good, Lox. I know that. She’s not like us.”
No, she wasn’t like us at all. She worked to make the world better in the broad light of day, she pushed back against greed and destruction not with more greed and destruction, but with science and transparency and…grace.
She gave grace to people.
Rafe and I did not give grace to people. Our jobs had never been about grace, only about solving problems. A dark kind of math, done with the darkest kind of science.
Seeing Rafe look at Marian like that made something in my throat ache. “She’s not like us,” I echoed. “Please.”
He didn’t answer, his eyes still on the sleeping submissive, his thumb rubbing restlessly at his fingers.
And then Marian’s eyes fluttered open. After several bemused blinks, she sat straight up.
“Oh God! I’m so sorry,” she said, her cheeks burning a bright pink. “I—I never do that. Just fall asleep like that.”
“It’s natural for the end of a scene,” Rafe said. When he spoke to her, the roughness in his voice sounded intimate. Kind, even, if not totally safe. “How do you feel?”
“Amazing,” she said, her eyes sliding over to me. When she added, “Sir,” I couldn’t tell if it was for his benefit or mine.
“I want to talk to you,” I told Marian. “Now.”
Rafe stepped forward. “Absolutely not. She needs to go home and sleep.”
I glared at him. “You aren’t her dominant.”
“I am right now, and her recovery is my responsibility.”
“I’ll talk to you, Lox,” Marian said, swinging her legs off the bed. “It’s okay, Rafe. I promise I’ll go straight home after.”
His jaw was tight. “Then I’m staying.”
“I fucking dare you to try,” I said, crossing my arms.
“I accept the dare,” he replied, voice soft with unspoken threats.
“Stop!” Marian cried as she got to her feet. “Just stop it! I know that the two of you used to be together, but that’s no excuse for”—she gestured between Rafe and me—“whatever this is.”
For a moment—an absurd, nearly comical moment—Rafe and I looked at each other and seemed to realize at the same time that she still didn’t know the entire truth, or even most of it.Ex-loverswas the category she’d filed us under, just normal, run of the millex-lovers, and maybe that was for the best.Traitor/hunter of traitorswas a much more complicated category. Especially when the hunter and hunted were also ex-lovers anyway.
