Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“She’s being watched again.”
Knight drops the tablet on the folding table between us, screen facing up. A fresh post from Cathedral’s underground board is still glowing, timestamped six minutes ago. The image? River’s apartment building. Different angle. Different distance.
Same target.
I knew this would happen.
I just didn’t think it’d happen so fast.
Arrow scrubs a hand over his jaw and exhales slowly. “That’s the second pic in twenty-four hours.”
Knight pulls up another. “This one was from earlier. Caught her on the sidewalk. Walking home, hoodie up, headphones in. Same time stamp as the post.”
I try not to show it, but my fists curl.
“She’s not safe,” I say, flatly. “Not there. Not anymore.”
“Yeah,” Knight says, stretching his legs out in front of him, boot knocking into mine. “Which means it’s time.”
Arrow nods. “We move her.”
I exhale, already picturing it. The only place that makes sense—the one place we know is dark, disconnected, and damn near invisible.
Riverside.
A squat concrete building on the edge of the city, nestled between an abandoned factory and a busted-out strip mall that hasn't seen a tenant since dial-up. It used to be a print shop. We turned it into our mission control when we were tracking Arby Kate’s killers. Barebones, but secure. Steel door. No windows on the first floor. Secondary locks. Scram toggles. Mesh wifi. Soundproofed main room.
And no one but us knows it exists.
Knight’s already grabbing his coat. “We’ll take my truck. I’ve got the mattress still rolled in the back.”
Arrow tosses me the spare keys. “Let’s go set it up.”
The ride is quiet. Focused. Familiar.
We pull up to Riverside just before dark. The parking lot’s cracked and half-swallowed by weeds. The building is exactly as we left it: ugly, fortified, perfect.
Knight’s truck backs up to the loading door, and the three of us haul in the twin mattress, a couple of spare chairs, and a few crates of supplies. Arrow pulls the plastic off the cots and sets one up in the far corner, where the old blackout curtains are still taped in place.
“She’s going to hate this,” Knight says, unfolding a blue blanket with cute cupcake designs all over it. The saying ‘A cupcake a day keeps the blues away’ is scrawled across the top.
“She’s going to be alive,” I shoot back.
I walk to the corner, where the walls meet in a half-finished L of drywall and exposed brick. There’s an old cork board there with Arby Kate’s case photos still pinned like scars. I take them down, one by one, and carefully store them in a labeled box.
Then I start fresh.
New cork board. New mission.
River Quinn. Protect at all costs.
Arrow tosses me a fresh set of linens. “She needs to feel like it’s hers, not a bunker.”
“Right,” I nod, adjusting the small table we brought in. “We’ll make it comfortable.”
Knight snorts. “Define comfortable.”
“She likes lavender,” I say, before I can stop myself.
Both of them pause.
Arrow grins. “You would know that.”
Knight tilts his head, curious. “So… how deep are you in?”
I freeze.
Knight presses. “You’re watching her around the clock. You set up fake accounts just to reroute her search history away from trackers. You gave her the good coffee beans. And now you’re furnishing a safe house like you’re trying to impress her mother.”
“I’m not—”
Arrow cuts in gently. “You love her.”
I don’t answer.
Because I don’t have to.
The truth is already in the room, thick as smoke.
Knight raises a brow. “Damn. So it’s like that?”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “It’s like that.”
They don’t tease me. Not this time.
I sit on the edge of the new bed, staring down at my hands. “I can’t tell her. Not yet. She trusts Mask. But she doesn’t trust me. Not really. Not enough. If I tell her now, I ruin the one thing keeping her sane.”
Arrow nods. “So you wait.”
“Waiting sucks,” I mutter.
“Falling sucks more,” Knight adds.
Arrow chuckles. “Nah. Once you find the right person… falling is the easy part.”
As if on cue, the door creaks open a few minutes later, and Juno, Arrow’s girlfriend, steps in, wrapped in a big puffer jacket and holding a small lavender plant in a blue ceramic pot.
“It’s not much,” she says, placing it on the shelf by the back window, “but it’s alive. Which is more than I can say for most of the vibes in here.”
Arrow grins and pulls her into a kiss. Soft. Familiar. Full of the kind of history I used to think wasn’t real until I watched them survive hell and walk out the other side.
“Now it feels like home,” he murmurs, forehead pressed to hers.
Juno smiles, then glances at me. “So. River?”
“Yeah,” I say. “We’re moving her in tomorrow. She doesn’t know yet.”
“You gonna tell her?”
I pause. “What? About this place?”
Juno gives me a look.
“Oh,” I say. “That.”
“She’s going to figure it out eventually, Gage.” She glances over at Arrow. “I did when Arrow tried to trick me.”