Page 136 of Operation: Defiance

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Asher

Raine stays very still, like her body hasn’t caught up to the fact that the assault of information has stopped.

I give her space to decide the next movement. She takes two careful breaths, each one deeper than the last, then lifts her chin.

This is bravery. Choosing to stay when it would be so much easier to go.

“You need anything?” I ask.

She shakes her head, but it’s not dismissal. More like she’s sorting through the dozen things she could ask for, but hasn’t chosen one yet.

Her gaze flicks to me—quick, precise, assessing without apology.

Not checking if I’m okay.

Checking if I’m steady.

If I can hold the line a little longer.

“I’m right here.”

Something in her posture loosens by a degree. She nods once, and I feel the shift of trust like a hand settling on my shoulder.

She’s done for now.

And what she needs next isn’t analysis.

It’s normalcy.

Rest. Food. Warmth.

A life.

“Let’s take a break,” I say. “We can figure out the next step after the sun comes up.”

She doesn’t argue. That alone tells me how much today cost her.

And how much she intends to keep fighting.

Raine

Asher doesn’t hover. He moves through the safe house with the same practiced unobtrusiveness I’ve come to rely on. He’s close enough to anchor me, far enough that I don’t feel watched. At some point, he sets a bowl of soft scrambled eggs next to me with a light grating of Parmesan dusting the top.

I didn’t know I was hungry until I saw it.

My stomach accepts a little more than half of it. Not exactly a meal, but more than survival. Another small step toward normalcy.

But as I warm my hands around the mug of tea, the sweatshirt shifts against my bare ribs, reminding me how far I still have to go. My cheeks catch fire, and I fix my gaze to a small imperfection in the tile floor.

Everything touching my body is borrowed. Temporary.

I don’t have underwear.

Or a bra.

Or anything that belongs to me.