Chapter 7: Variable on the Run
The engine of the SUV didn't roar; it hummed with a low, predatory vibration that made the soles of my feet itch. We were clearing the city limits, the neon lights of the skyline fading into the rearview mirror.
Maisie was passed out in the back, her head lolling against the window, "Pinky" the unicorn tucked under her arm. She was the only one of us who could find peace in a getaway car.
I looked at Caden. He was still wearing that tactical vest, his profile illuminated by the green glow of the dashboard. He hadn't said a word since we left the house. He just stared at the road, his hands at ten and two, his eyes scanning the horizon like he was looking for snipers in the trees.
"Where are we going, Caden?" I finally asked. The silence was starting to feel like a physical weight.
"North," he said. "I have a cabin near the border. It's off the grid. No digital footprint. No variables."
"Am I still just a variable to you?" I turned in my seat, ignoring the pinch of my seatbelt. "Even after you fought those men off? Even after you bought my daughter a glittery unicorn?"
His jaw tightened. I saw that muscle jump in his cheek again—the only sign that there was a human heart beating under all that Kevlar. "The unicorn was a tactical error," he muttered. "A moment of weakened logic."
"You're full of it," I snapped, the adrenaline from the breach finally turning into raw irritation. "You're not a robot, Caden. You're just a man who's terrified of feeling something that isn't a mission objective. You saved us because you care. Just admit it."
He didn't look at me. He didn't even blink. "I saved you because you are a witness to a crime that involves a syndicate I've been hunting for three years. If you die, my lead dies. That is the beginning and the end of the calculation."
"Liar," I whispered.
I reached out, my hand hovering over his arm. I shouldn't have done it. Every protocol he'd given me told me to stay in my lane, to keep the distance. But I was tired of the rules. I rested my hand on his bicep, right over the torn fabric of his sleeve where the blood had dried.
He flinched. It was a small movement, but in a man who moved with the precision of a machine, it felt like an earthquake. He didn't pull away, though. His skin was hot, his muscles hard as stone, but I felt a tremor run through him.
"Amara," he said, his voice dropping into that dangerous, gravelly register. "Take your hand off me."
"Why? Is it breaking the protocol?"
"It's a distraction," he hissed. He finally turned his head, his jet-black eyes locking onto mine. There was no mask now. There was just hunger—raw, dark, and completely un-robotic. "I'm trying to keep us on the road, and you're making it impossible to think."
"Then don't think," I said.
For a second, the world stopped. The hum of the engine, the dark trees flying by, the sleeping child in the back—it all blurred into the background. There was just the heat of his skin and the way he was looking at my lips like they were the most dangerous thing he'd ever faced.
He turned back to the road abruptly, his grip on the steering wheel so tight the leather groaned. "Go to sleep, Amara. We have six hours left. I need you alert when we arrive."
I pulled my hand back, my heart doing a frantic, happy dance against my ribs. He could lie all he wanted, but the "glitch" was winning.
We drove in silence for another hour before we hit a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Caden killed the engine but didn't get out. He scanned the perimeter for three full minutes before nodding.
"Stay here. Keep the doors locked. If anyone besides me approaches this vehicle, you move to the driver's seat and you drive until you hit a police station. Do you understand?"
"Caden, it's a gas station in the woods. There's no one here."
"Protocol is not optional," he said.
He climbed out, and I watched him through the tinted glass. He moved with a lethal grace, even when he was just walking to the pump. He was a man built for war, but as he reached back into the car to grab a bottle of water for me and a snack for Maisie, I saw the hero again.
I leaned my head against the headrest and closed my eyes. I was homeless, I was being hunted by arsonists, and I was on the run with a man who treated me like a line of code. But for the first time in my life, I didn't feel like I was fighting the world alone.
I was with him. And God help me, I didn't want to be anywhere else.