Page 16 of Thorne
The line of her jaw. The slight tension in the muscles of her neck—not dramatic, not visible unless you've been watching for it the way I've been watching for it since the helicopter. She carries the tension of a person who is maintaining her posture by will rather than by ease.
Her throat. The way it moves when she swallows is stuck in my head.
I imagine Lily in her blanket fort, Theodore clutched tight, sleeping, carrying poison in her blood, not knowing, not feeling it, just playing with her dinosaur, keeping him safe from the hungry T-rex.
Those hands. This vehicle. The math of it—the absolute obscenity of the math of it—lands in my chest, low and specific, the pressure of an equation that resolves into the only action available:keep moving north, keep this woman alive, let her work, let her dismantle what she created.
I'm transporting the woman who poisoned my child to the only place that can protect both of them.
The thought is obscene.
I do it anyway.
Stratton's profile stays at the window. My eyes catch the line of her neck. Pale skin. The dark fall of her hair. My body notes the contrast against the gray of the transport.
The unwanted information sinks in. I categorize it. Lock it down.
I grip the Glock 19 and force myself to look elsewhere—anywhere—but at the woman sitting across from me.
The convoy moves north through the Nevada desert. Hours pass.
The mountains are ahead. The morning light is hardening into day.
Neither of us speaks.
4
Isolation
JULIANNA
For the entire drive,the structure of the space remains the same.
Steel plating. Bulletproof glass. The dull vibration of tires on asphalt.
And Thorne.
We're sealed in the back, a heavy partition separating us from the driver. The dimensions cramped and utilitarian, built for the secure transport of hostile assets. The air smells of polymer, metal, andhim.
From Ghostwater to wherever we are now, the silence between us has been absolute.
But not empty.
It has weight.
It's a load-bearing column at the center of this vehicle, constructed entirely from the moment in the control room when he lowered the weapon and refused to pull the trigger.
My body remembers that moment with uncomfortable clarity.
The weight of the barrel pressed into the center of my chest. The certainty in his eyes that if Lily's condition worsens by even a fraction, he would complete the action.
My heart did not accelerate.
That realization disturbs me now more than it did then.
Because when the gun was against my sternum, my body didn't react like a person fighting to survive.
My pulse slowed.
