Page 292 of Operation: Defiance

Natasha straightens where she’s been leaning against the door jamb. “He means that. We don’t say those words—I promise—unless we know they’re true.”

Asher’s entire body loosens by degrees. Shoulders first, then his jaw, then his hands. He lets his arm fall, turning his head so he can see me again. I understand without a single word passing between us. He needs to be here. Present.

And he needs me to stay here too.

“Morphine first.” Doc is already drawing it up, the needle catching the light before he finds the IV port and depresses the plunger. He swaps syringes with the ease of someone who’s done this countless times in considerably worse conditions than these. “The local is going to sting before it helps.”

I watch it all. Asher’s flinch. The piece of glass pulled free with steady hands. Saline irrigating the bloody gash. Finally, the suture kit laid out on the nightstand.

Doc reaches for a needle, his gaze pinned to the wound. “His voice. How long?”

“The video came in at three forty-five,” I say, my own words starting to fracture. “He tried to say something and…couldn’t.”

“You’re going to have to help us out here, mate. Was it hours before the video?” Doc asks with a quick glance away from the stitches.

Asher shakes his head.

“Minutes?”

A nod.

“Injury?”

No.

“Injection?”

Yes.

Doc returns his focus to Asher’s side, tying off the sutures then taping a thick piece of gauze in place over the wound. After another blood pressure check, he moves to the bottom corner of the bed so he can see both of us.

“Raine, Inara told us a friend needed help. That’s why we came. And you don’t have to explain everything. We”—he glances at Natasha—“know what it’s like to be hunted. But we’re obviously talking government here. They have a medical research division?”

I look at Asher. His eyes are half closed now, the morphine and exhaustion working together to pull him toward sleep he desperately needs.

My thumb drifts to my index finger and finds nothing. I move to the dresser and pick up the challenge coin. Its weight in my palm helps.

All of this—my trauma, Asher’s injuries, Inara on a rooftop with a sniper rifle—happened because GSD operated in the dark for years. It’ll hit the news soon, if it hasn’t already.

The calculation is easy. Doc and Natasha are already a part of this. They knew almost nothing, and they came anyway.

“I worked for the Global Security Directorate. On the books, we didn’t do any medical research. But we didn’t officially have a secret black site in Centralia that tried to erase agents who weren’t…behaving either.”

Doc is quiet for a moment. “A targeted shot to the laryngeal nerve would probably do it. Risky. Too easy to paralyze everything. Esophagus, the entire throat—” He stops and shakes his head. “The good news? Nerve blocks wear off.”

I don’t let myself react. Not yet. “And the bad news?”

He sighs. “We don’t know how long that’ll take. Or what they used. Could be an hour. Could be a day. But unless they fucked it up somehow, it will wear off.”

Asher’s eyes close. His breathing steadies into something slower—deeper. As if knowing his voice will come back is what he needs to finally let go.

My legs stop cooperating.

I don’t decide to slide down the wall as much as I stop fighting gravity, allowing it to take over. My ass finds the floor, my knees pull up, and now that Asher doesn’t need me to hold myself together for him anymore, my body files its own report about the past thirty hours.

Doc looks at me for a long moment. Then he crouches down to my level. “Your turn.”

I almost argue. But my shoulder makes the decision for me when I try to swipe a tear away and it catches sharply, almost slipping out of place from that simple motion alone.