The hot water felt like salvation, washing away grime and fear in equal measure. Steam filled the small space, clouding the already-foggy mirror until my reflection became a ghostly suggestion. I closed my eyes and let the water pound against my shoulders, trying to forget about the red lines spreading beneath Reaper’s skin, about Xavier, about everything except this momentary relief.
A shadow fell across the frosted glass.
My heart lurched into my throat. I froze, hands instinctively covering myself as the shadow paused outside the door. In that moment, all my fears crystallized—how easily hecould slide that door open, how defenseless I’d be, how my brother might never know what happened to me.
The shadow lingered, then moved away, followed by the door opening and closing.
He’d left.
I stood motionless under the spray, processing this simple act of respect. He’d brought clothes, then given me privacy—not just by stepping away, but by removing himself entirely from the apartment. The trust forming between us felt as fragile and dangerous as nitroglycerin, unstable enough to detonate with the slightest pressure.
Twenty-four hours ago, this man had tracked me through República Square with lethal intent. Now I was naked in his safehouse, and he was…protecting me? The shift felt impossible, yet undeniable.
I dried quickly and found the clothes he’d left—a faded t-shirt and drawstring pants that smelled clean but obviously belonged to a much larger frame. I rolled the waistband several times and cinched it tight, grateful for once that my hips weren’t narrow enough to require cinching. The shirt hung to mid-thigh, sleeves falling past my elbows.
When I emerged from the bathroom, I was surprised that Reaper had returned. He stood at a small hotplate, heating something in a dented pot. The domestic tableau—an assassin preparing food—struck me as surreal, like finding a tiger folding laundry.
I couldn’t help but notice he’d changed too. On his broad frame, the borrowed clothes looked almost comically inadequate—the t-shirt stretched across his shoulders,revealing strips of skin where the fabric couldn’t quite cover his torso, pants ending well above his ankles. There was something profoundly humanizing about seeing a trained killer in ill-fitting clothes, like catching a glimpse of the man beneath the weapon.
My gaze drifted past him to where he’d strung up our wet clothes on an improvised clothesline near an open window. The gentle favela breeze rippled through my blouse and his dark shirt, hanging side by side like some bizarre metaphor for our forced alliance. Something about the sight—the care he’d taken with this mundane task—tightened my throat with an emotion I refused to name.
“You look better,” he said, eyes flicking to me before returning to his task. The awkward comment hung between us, revealing a hint of social uncertainty that felt strangely endearing.
I moved beside him to peer into the pot. “What are we having?”
“Just beans and rice. That’s all that is available.” Right now, with how hungry I was, I could’ve eaten anything he had to offer.
Our hands brushed as I reached for a spoon. The contact was brief but electric, conjuring vivid memories of that desperate kiss in the maintenance closet—the taste of rain on his lips, the solid weight of his body against mine, the momentary surrender to something beyond survival. His fingers stilled for a fraction of a second—he’d felt it too. Our eyes met, and I recognized the same conflicted hungerI was fighting. This attraction was as ill-advised as it was undeniable.
A sudden pounding on a nearby door shattered the moment. Voices shouted in rapid Portuguese. Reaper’s body transformed instantly—the uncertain man replaced by lethal calculation. He positioned himself between me and the apartment door, one arm extending protectively as his other hand reached for his weapon.
We stood frozen as heavy boots stomped past our door. The voices grew more insistent, and the banging continued on a door further down the hall. A woman’s shrill voice cut through the commotion, her words slurring together in a torrent of accusations. A man shouted back, his deep voice thunderous with rage. Something shattered—glass or ceramic—followed by a child’s frightened wail.
“Family dispute,” Reaper whispered, his shoulders relaxing marginally, though his hand remained on his weapon. “The husband’s been drinking again. He gets violent.” His eyes tracked the sounds. “Not our problem unless it spills over.”
I flinched as another crash echoed down the hallway, followed by more screaming and the sound of something heavy hitting a wall. The child’s crying intensified, piercing and desperate. My stomach twisted with helpless rage—the instinct to intervene warring with the knowledge that we couldn’t risk drawing attention to ourselves.
“Sometimes I watched these situations during surveillance,” Reaper said, voice unnervingly detached. “Patterns of human behavior. Predictable. Violent but contained.”
The clinical assessment chilled me more than the domestic violence itself. This was how he’d been trained to observe humanity—as patterns to analyze rather than people to connect with. Yet he’d positioned himself to protect me without hesitation.
The commotion eventually moved away, but the protective stance Reaper had instinctively adopted remained. We stood close enough that I could smell the rain-washed scent of his skin. The danger had passed, but a different kind of tension—equally potent—remained.
The adrenaline from our narrow escape faded, leaving bone-deep exhaustion in its wake. I sank into a rickety chair at the tiny table while Reaper spooned rice and beans from the pot into two chipped bowls he’d found in a cabinet. The rain drummed against the tin roof, creating a strange cocoon of isolation that felt almost peaceful after hours of pursuit.
We sat shoulder to shoulder at the small table, the warmth of his arm against mine a strange comfort. The bowl was still too hot, but I took a bite anyway, letting the simple food revive me. It had been—how long since I’d eaten? The hours had blurred together in a haze of fear and discovery.
“Let’s assess the data on that USB,” Reaper said, his voice steady despite the tension visible in the rigid set of his shoulders and the controlled rhythm of his breathing.
I nodded, wiping my hands on the oversized shirt before inserting the USB drive. My fingers trembled slightly, from exhaustion or anticipation—I couldn’t tell anymore.Everything felt heightened, as if my body had forgotten how to process normal sensations after so much fear.
The drive contained dozens of files organized into neat folders with clinical labels. I opened the first one labeled “Initial Trials,” and medical reports filled the screen. Names had been heavily redacted, replaced with subject numbers and dates.
“Look at these physical assessments,” I murmured, scrolling through charts documenting weight, muscle mass, and neural responsiveness. I brought my hand to my mouth in sheer shock. This shouldn’t have surprised me, yet, it did. “They were treating people like lab rats.”
Psychological evaluations followed, documenting resistance levels, pain thresholds, and something called “cognitive malleability.” The terminology grew increasingly disturbing with each file: “cognitive recalibration,” “memory suppression protocols,” “identity dissolution,” “loyalty reconditioning.”
But most disturbing was the outcome listed at the end of each file: a simple, bureaucratic “STATUS: TERMINATED.”
