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“Should I be grateful?” I ask, cutting her off. “That you’re alive because of decisions I made? That you’re breathing right now because I chose to keep you that way?”

She stares at me, her eyes flashing with something that might be anger or might be something else entirely. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Isn’t it? You asked if you should be grateful I decided not to kill you. I’m asking if I should be grateful that you’re still here, that you’re still breathing, that I get to look at you every day and wonder what the hell is happening to me.”

The words come out before I can stop them. I don’t know where they came from. I don’t know what I’m trying to say.

She’s looking at me like she’s never seen me before. “What?”

“You think you’re the only one who’s confused, you think I planned what happened in the study? I didn’t. I lost control. I did something I shouldn’t have done, and I can’t stop thinking about it, and it’s driving me out of my mind.”

She doesn’t respond. She just stands there, watching me, her expression unreadable.

“The plan those men were discussing,” I continue, my voice steadier now. “It was real. It existed, but it was abandoned the moment I understood what you could do, what you were worth. You’re not a loose end, Davina. You’re not disposable. You never were.”

“Then what am I?”

The question hangs in the air between us. I should answer it. I should tell her what she is—what she’s become to me, what I’ve been trying not to feel since the moment I first saw her.

Saying it out loud would make it real. If it’s real, I have to deal with it. I have to figure out what it means, how it changes things, what I’m supposed to do with feelings I’ve never had before and don’t know how to handle.

I don’t answer. I just stand there, looking at her, and I can see the exact moment she gives up on waiting for me to speak.

“Right,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t think so.”

She walks past me, her shoulder brushing mine for the briefest moment, and then she’s gone.

I stand in the empty library for a long time after she leaves.

Her question echoes in my head, repeating over and over until I can’t think of anything else.

I’ve made decisions my whole life without regret. I’ve ordered actions that resulted in death, destruction, suffering. I’ve never lost sleep over the choices I’ve made, because they were necessary, because they served the greater good of the organization.

But Davina… I didn’t choose this. I didn’t decide to feel this way about her. It happened without my permission, without my consent, and now I don’t know how to make it stop.

I’m not sure I want it to stop.

Chapter Fifteen - Davina

I stop pretending I’m ever getting out of here through negotiation.

For three days after the library, I watch and plan.

The guards change shifts at midnight and four in the morning. There’s a ninety-second window during the transition when the hallway outside my room is empty. The security cameras have a blind spot near the service stairwell; I found it during my permitted walks, filed it away without realizing I’d need it so soon.

The kitchen staff uses a service entrance on the west side. They come and go without much scrutiny, their badges checked with a glance rather than a scan. The delivery trucks arrive on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the drivers are more focused on their cargo than on watching for escapees.

I piece it together over days, building the plan in my head like I’d build a system map. Entry points, exit routes, vulnerabilities in the architecture. The same skills that let me navigate Maxim’s financial networks now help me navigate his physical ones.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

On the fifth night, I make my move.

I wait until the shift change, until the footsteps in the hallway fade and the new guards haven’t yet settled into position. I know the camera has a blind spot by the left corner, where there’s an armchair. I’ve spent the last several days sitting there, in that blind spot, so they won’t think anything of it when I vanish.

Now I slip out of my room, moving quickly and quietly through the corridor to the service stairwell.

My heart pounds with every step. Not from fear, though, but from the fierce joy of finally doing something instead of waiting to be saved.