Chapter 31: Plan [3]

"So," Cane started, his voice a low drawl. "Your half of the forest turn up anything worth bragging about?"

She told him. The satchel, the waiting footprints, the lack of weapons. She laid it out in the same clipped, unadorned way she’d delivered the briefing numbers that morning, a report with no room for feeling.

He just smirked. "You know, for someone who claims to find me exhausting, you sure did come running the second we agreed to meet up. It’s okay. You can admit it. You missed me."

She opened her mouth to shut him down, to deliver the same flat, dismissive line she always did. But the words didn’t come. Instead, something else happened. The corner of her mouth twitched, a faint, involuntary curve that was almost a smile.

It was there for a half-second before she caught it, her expression smoothing back into its usual blankness. But it had happened. It was the first crack in the wall she’d so deliberately rebuilt between them, a small, undeniable sign that the hours of tense, separate work had worn something down instead of building it back up.

He saw it. She knew he saw it. But he didn’t push his luck. He’d learned enough about her to know that pointing out a crack was the fastest way to get it sealed over with stone.

To move together without every proctor in the quadrant spotting them, Raven had to wrap them in a low, close-radius concealment. It wasn’t the all-consuming void of the Shadow Garden; it was a lesser trick, a weave of shadows that muted the crunch of their boots and blurred the edges of their forms. But it was fragile. It only held if he stayed within arm’s reach, a detail he seemed to find endlessly convenient.

The forced proximity was a constant, irritating pressure. They moved hip-to-hip through the dense underbrush, the sway of her ass brushing against his thigh with every other step. When the path narrowed, forcing them single-file, his hand would brush against hers, a touch that lingered a fraction of a second too long. It gave him exactly the excuse he’d been angling for all day.

"You know," he murmured, his voice a low vibration so close it was practically in her ear, "I could get used to this kind of assignment. Very hands-on. Very... collaborative."

His gaze dropped, shamelessly, to the curve of her backside, which was straining the fabric of her skirt with every step she took. Her thighs, toned and powerful, pressed against the pleated wool.

He took his shot. His hand moved, reaching for her ass, his fingers outstretched. She smacked it away without even looking, the sound a sharp, stinging slap against his skin.

"Not now," she hissed, her glare hot enough to burn.

Her voice was a furious whisper, but it carried more real threat than her usual flat tone ever did. A whisper that venomous, delivered inches from his ear on ground where being overheard could get them both killed, was somehow funnier and more genuinely dangerous than a shout could ever be.

"Not NOW?" He just grinned, unrepentant. "And a man has to try. It’s in my nature. And for the record, that ass is a work of art."

"Keep your hands and your commentary to yourself, or the next thing you try will be reattaching your fingers." The whisper was a silken threat.

He kept needling her, quiet, relentless, pushing right up to the edge of what the concealment could handle. She kept threatening him back in that same murderous undertone. Somewhere in the last few days, the rhythm had become almost comfortable. At one point, his shoulder brushed against hers as they navigated a fallen log, and this time, neither of them bothered to adjust, to put the distance back. Maintaining the shroud, they both silently decided, was reason enough.

The banter died mid-word.

Ahead, through a gap in the trees, a figure moved. His clothes were plain, dark, nothing to catch the light. He carried no torch. He moved with a slow, deliberate rhythm, not wandering, but patrolling. It was the unmistakable gait of a man trained to cover ground methodically.

Cane and Raven froze. They didn’t need to look at each other. They didn’t need to speak. The world shrank to the sound of their own breathing, each tiny noise suddenly enormous. A foot shifted on dry leaves. A held breath released a half-second too fast. The distant creak of a branch that might have just been the wind.

The scout passed close. Close enough that Cane could make out the unremarkable shape of his face, the slack jaw, the youthful set of his shoulders. He passed, oblivious, his footsteps fading into the sounds of the forest. The tension didn’t break; it bled slowly out of the air, leaving them both hyper-aware of how thin their cover truly was. A few degrees, a single turn of the head, and they would have been made.

They took him a few minutes later. He had separated from the treeline, moving into a small, open clearing where no backup could possibly hear a struggle. He was young. Younger than Cane expected. The moment he realised he wasn’t alone, raw, immediate fear washed over his face. He was a foot soldier, the kind of expendable pawn an organization like the Talons used up and forgot. Raven knew that look. She knew that role.

Her response was pure, physical reflex. Her control, so carefully maintained all morning, simply snapped. Before Cane could get a single clever word out, her blade was at the kid’s throat, the honed steel kissing his skin.

There was no time for a performance. No room for the usual bullshit.

"A dead scout doesn’t answer questions," Cane said, his voice flat and fast. "Killing a scared kid isn’t the ’zero’ you told me you wanted."

He cut through her rage with none of his usual routine. For a long, suspended moment, nobody moved. The only sounds were the scout’s ragged, panicked breathing and the faint creak of Raven’s leather glove as her grip tightened on the knife.

She didn’t lower the blade. But she didn’t finish the cut, either. The scout’s terrified eyes were locked on Cane, not on her. Some animal instinct told him exactly which of the two people looming over him was the one worth begging.