Page 122 of Operation: Defiance

For a second, neither of us speaks. Asher taps a few keys on the laptop, and the phone beeps.

“I sent you all the notes,” he says. “I’ll wipe my copy now.”

“No.” The word comes out sharper than I intend. “You don’t have to. You have the logs. I’ll need”—I swallow—“we’ll need both. To make it make sense.”

Something in his shoulders eases, even as the anger under his skin stays lit. “All right. They stay. They’re yours, even if they’re on my machine. We go through them together. Just…not today.”

I nod. He’s right. I can’t do more today. At least…not right now.

“Can I get you some water? More tea?” he asks.

“Water.”

He rises slowly, keeping his hands in my line of sight until he steps through the doorway toward the kitchenette. “You’ll hear me the whole time.”

The cabinet door, the faucet, the sound of a glass against the counter—they all narrate his movements. He’s being loud on purpose. So I can track where he is. So I feel safe.

“Coming in on your right,” he says. He sits on the edge of the bed again, a careful distance away, and holds up the glass. “Want to try it on your own?”

“My hands work now,” I say. “Mostly.”

“No heroics. If it’s too heavy, let me know.” He offers the glass, bottom resting in his palm so I can decide how much weight my fingers can handle.

I manage half a dozen small sips before I set the glass on the nightstand.

Asher retreats to the chair, settling back with his hands on the arms, fingers loose. Relaxed.

“You really don’t like that word, do you? Heroics?” I ask.

One corner of his mouth curves into a smile. “Heroes die young. Or take jobs they regret. I prefer staying alive—and getting results. The one time I tried to be a hero, I found myself in the middle of a war zone with a target who didn’t want to be saved. It caused too long of a delay, and the client pulled my exfil.”

“You’re here,” I say. “So you survived it.”

“Eventually.” His gaze flicks over me. “Doesn’t mean it was smart.”

The heaviness hits all at once. My limbs go thick and dull, like I’ve been holding up the world for hours and someone finally said I could stop.

“You did a lot of work,” he says quietly. “Your body’s going to feel like it ran a marathon.”

My eyes sting. “It was just…talking.”

“No.” His voice is soft, but not gentle. Honest. “They spent days trying to break you. To make you doubt everything you thought you knew. And you just turned every mark they left on you into testimony against them. That’s not ‘just’ anything.”

The words land with more emotion than I want to admit. My muscles keep sinking, heavy and spent, but it feels earned now, not like failure.

“You’re allowed to rest,” he adds. “Rest isn’t losing ground. It’s how you keep it.”

My chest loosens by degrees. “You’ll stay?”

“Yes.” He closes his eyes once, slowly, then opens them again. “Between you and the door. For as long as you need.”

My body hears that more than my mind does.

“Okay,” I murmur. “Then…I think I can close my eyes for a little while.”

“Good,” he says. “Let your system stand down. The evidence isn’t going anywhere.”

I turn my face toward the wall, focusing on the weight of the blanket, the warmth at my feet, the quiet sound of his breathing.

They tried to catalog me into nothing.

Now there’s a record with my name on it. And I’m still here to decide what to do with it.