Sawyer’s embrace tightens, a smile starting to form against my skin when suddenly he goes rigid with a sharp intake of breath.
“Shit.” He plants me on the floor and takes a step back, almost causing me to stumble, running his hands through his damp hair. “I shouldn’t have done that. Shit!” he yells, and my heart starts beating hard and fast for entirely different reasons.
“Calm down, Sawyer.”
“Calm down?” He turns to me, a desperation in his eyes I’ve never seen before. “This is my life, Madeline, my career, my family! Fuck!”
“It’ll be okay.” I try a reassuring approach, hoping it will calm him.
“Okay? This is the only thing I have. If what just happened ever leaves this room, I’m ruined. Do you understand that, Maddie?” He’s standing in front of me, looming over me with all his height, waves of anger rolling off him. “I just riskedeverythingbecause I lost control with an asset.”
His words and attitude are like a knife, effortlessly cutting through sinew and bone straight to all the vulnerable tissue underneath.
”Right, because I’m nothing but the asset you got stuck with and ended up almost fucking on the safe house sink.”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that.” I hear him behind me as I storm out of the room. “Fuck, Maddie, stop. I’m sorry.” “
I slam the door behind me and lock it, wiping the tears from my eyes, feeling exposed and vulnerable and shredded to pieces by a man that has always made his stance about me clear.
How did I let myself get here? I knew he was pretending. I knew he didn’t really care about anything beyond the mission, but I wanted to believe so badly. I needed it to be real. Iwishedfor it to be real.
“Maddie, please.” Sawyer’s voice carries through the door, desperate and begging, and my treacherous heart beats a little faster as if it didn’t get the memo that it’s supposed to be broken. “Please. I’m sorry.Please.” The helplessness in his tone has me taking a step towards the door.
Fuck. My mind is whirring with pain and hope, reeling with all the things I want, and Sawyer won’t ever give me. The only thing I know for sure is that I need to get out of this housenow.
Sawyer
“Maddie, come on,” I call out again and groan, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my palms. I’ve been knocking on her door for the past ten minutes, only pausing to quickly pull on some sweats and a shirt.
Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!
The word flashes through my head with every pound of my fist against the wood. “I can always just kick the door in, you know.”
Still no reply, and it’s eerily quiet as well. Until ten seconds ago, I heard Maddie shuffling around inside. I suddenly realize I can also hear the street noise much louder than before.
“Shit!” I kick in the door and run to the window, just in time to see her slide off the drainpipe to the ground. People on the street have their phones out. Some of them are looking up at the window with worry, phone to their ear, probably calling the cops.
“Fuck!” I run to the door, snatching up my emergency bag on the way out, using the back exit to the building and sprinting out to the street, frantically searching for Maddie in the direction I saw her dash off.
It doesn’t take me long to locate the girl with the laced-up black boots and gray beret with a blond ponytail sticking out of it, standing completely still at a street corner not even a block away from the safe house, waiting like a sitting duck.
I sprint and grab her arm, and she startles with a loud gasp, as if she wasn’t waiting but rather frozen in fear. I turn her to face me, steeling myself when I see her bloodshot puffy eyes and reddened nose. I can tend to her feelings later; her safety is more important right now.
I hail a cab and push her into it, surprisingly without protest, and give the driver an address as I pull out a new burner from my bag.
“Location Paisley has been compromised,” I inform Elijah Peak on the other side of the line before throwing the phone out the window.
“It’s less than ten degrees outside,” Maddie observes dryly as I roll up the window.
“I’ve been trained to operate in extreme temperatures,” I snap at her. “And your life is more important than a jacket.”
“Or shoes, apparently.” She pulls off her scarf and winds it around my neck, a little too tight for comfort.
“I don’t care how much you hate my guts. You don’t ever run away like that again, Maddie.”
“Yeah, I kind of realized it was a dumb move the second I stepped out to the street.” She leans towards the driver. “Could you turn up the heat, please?”
It doesn’t escape me that she didn’t deny hating me, but I force myself to compartmentalize, focusing on the road and any possible dangers.