Page 124 of Operation: Defiance

The table is small. Worn. The kind of place you expect people to eat and talk and maybe argue over who forgot to buy milk.

I used to wonder if I’d want that. Someone to share my life with. Someone who didn’t treat my need for order like a quirk to fix. My quiet as a challenge. The way my mind loops and recalibrates like a burden.

Every past attempt ended the same way. I was too much. Too intense. Too hard to understand.

Eventually, I stopped trying to explain myself.

Asher sets the bowl and a spoon down in front of me, followed by a glass of water—half full. He takes the other chair, keeping his hands on top of the table, visible.

That settles something tight in my chest.

I wrap my hands around the bowl and breathe it in before I taste it.

“Thank you,” I say, because it feels…normal.

“It’s basic.” He shrugs. “Soup is hard to mess up if you don’t get fancy.”

A faint smile pulls at my mouth. “That sounds like experience talking.”

“I’ve been stocking safe houses for more than ten years. But I’ve had my fill of MREs. This”—he nods at the bowl—“is just as easy. Frozen broth. Canned chicken. Dried noodles. I bought the carrots and onions when I got to town a few days ago.”

“I used to bake.” The words come easily. Surprise sends a slight tremor through my fingers, and I almost drop the spoon. “Before.”

Before everything.

“What kind?” he asks.

I’m surprised by how easily the answer comes. “Bread. Mostly. Sourdough, when I had the patience. There’s something satisfying about punching dough.”

A corner of his mouth lifts. “Violence-adjacent hobbies are underrated.”

I huff a quiet laugh before I can stop myself. It startles me more than him.

We eat quietly, only the hum of the music between us. The lack of conversation isn’t heavy. It’s companionable.

“You don’t have to finish it,” he says. “Just listen to your body.”

“I know.” And I do. Maybe for the first time since they took me.

Each spoonful is a test, and for once, my body isn’t failing.

I glance up at him. “So…do all your jobs involve soup?”

“Only the important ones.”

I shake my head. “You’re terrible at small talk.”

“I’m excellent at situational honesty.”

That earns him a real smile.

For this one stretch of time, I’m not a problem to solve or a body to manage. I’m just a woman sitting at a table, learning the shape of the man next to her.

That feels like the beginning of something I might actually want.

Asher

Raine’s smile lingers longer than I expect. It does something to the room—warms it, steadies it. I take another bite of my sandwich to give me a second to recalibrate.