Page 43 of If You Go
“Compromise.” I hold out a hand. “I will walk you up the stairs. Then I wait at the top.”
She almost smiles. “Bossy.”
“Accurate.” I wink at her, letting her know I’m serious, but I want to help lighten her mood.
We move. The big house turns golden as the sun angles down; dust motes float like lazy galaxies in the stairwell light. At the landing, she pauses, touch ghosting my jaw, gratitude and heat and something steadier flickering there.
“Thank you,” she says, and disappears down the hall.
I plant myself at the top step, shoulder to the newel post. I’m not guarding the hall to her room–she doesn’t need a sentinel so much as a witness. A few minutes later, Juniper peeks around the corner, sunglasses on indoors like she’s hiding from feelings.
“She okay?” she asks, voice carefully casual.
“She’s showering.”
“Right.” Juniper’s mouth quirks. “You should know Josh asked me to come check on you two, but… also to tell you he and Bridget are putting together dinner ‘for morale.’ His words.” She flexes her pointer and middle fingers in bunny ear quotations when she says formorale.
I smirk at her use of air quotes. “He’s learning.”
“He’s trying.” Her tone softens. “For what it’s worth, she did the hardest part today. It doesn’t fix things, but sometimes saying it out loud makes it smaller.”
“Sometimes,” I say. “Sometimes it makes it real.”
Juniper tips an imaginary hat and slips away. Water stops. Doors open. Footsteps pad. Surry returns in clean clothes—soft black leggings, one of my shirts she definitely stole, damp hair braided down her back. She looks like herself. Not the armor, not the silence—herself.
“Hungry? I guess Bridget and Joshua are making dinner” I tell her.
She hesitates, quirking a brow. Like at the combination of Bridget and Joshua and Dinner all in the same sentence. Then quietly but firmly says, “Only if you sit with me.”
“Non-negotiable.” I grin before grabbing her hand and leading us both toward the stairs.
Downstairs, the house is in that mellow evening swing where everyone is doing something and nothing at once. Bridget has orchestrated a meal that smells of rosemary, butter, and therapy. Richie’s cutting bread, he absolutely does not need to be trusted with that knife; Alisha hip-checks him out of the way thankfully. Joshua pretends not to watch Juniper pretend not to watch him. Normal for them.
We don’t talk strategy at dinner. Bridget wouldn’t allow it. She believes in “proper meals” the way field medics believein tourniquets: you stop the bleeding first. Conversation finds air pockets that don’t hurt—Richie’s disastrously short “trucker tan,” Alisha’s claim that she can out-bench Joshua(she can’t, and the bet is set for tomorrow), Hazel’s latest conspiracy about one of the groundskeepers having a secret twin in the village. Surry listens and eats, small bites, steady. That’s a victory. I catalog it like numbers on a plan.
After, I check my phone. A single ping—Gunnar’s coded check-in: wheels up in thirty, back tomorrow if the trail holds. He and Corver split leads at dawn; Arnie ran point into the nastier corners of the darknet afterward. They’re pulling all threads that say Natasha. We’re down a third of our muscle in exchange for the one person whose messages might unravel the whole thing. Worth it.
I show Joshua the screen. He nods. “War room after the kitchen’s put to bed?”
“Yeah.”
He jerks his chin toward Surry. “She gonna listen in?”
“If she wants.”
“She’ll want.” There’s zero doubt in his voice. “And she’ll catch the details we’ll miss. She’s smart.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
By the time the dishes are stacked and Bridget has chased everyone from her domain with a dish towel and a laugh, the sky is slate and the house is a low thrum of lamps and long shadows. We take the big round table in the formal dining room—not for ceremony, for surface area. Maps spread. Laptops open. A legal pad I’ll never admit is mine sits under my hand, pencil ready. Joshua’s on my right, already booted into our secure line. Surry curls into the chair to my left, legs tucked under, hair pulled over one shoulder. She looks small, but she feels enormous in the room.
The encrypted call snaps hot and clear: one tone, then Gunnar’s low burr. “You alive, Slater?”
“Unfortunately,” I say. “You?”
“Equipments live. Leads are mean.” No hello, no wasted breath. “Arnie’s digging on a shell company that paid out to a transport outfit we’ve seen on two Russian manifests. Corv’s ghosting accounts that spin back to a network with three familiar IPs. Kelly isn’t hiding—he’s taunting.”
Joshua leans in. “Natasha?”
