Page 80 of Betray Me
“It has to.” I set down the notebook, pages now filled with names, connections, operational timelines. “Because the alternative is letting them win. Letting them complete whatever ritual they think they need, letting them silence everyone who dared to speak out against their system.”
“And if we get caught? If Harper figures out what we’re really doing?”
I think about David Stone in a hospital bed, about Luna’s voice carrying the weight of years of trauma, about the photograph of Janet Wilson’s marked body that’s burned into my memory.
“Then we make sure our evidence gets out anyway. Create dead man’s switches, multiple release points, insurance policies that activate if we disappear.” I meet Max’s eyes in the dim light. “Max, we might not survive this. You understand that, right?”
“I understand that some things are worth dying for.” His hand finds mine across the table. “And some people are worth living for. Belle, whatever happens, I want you to know—”
“Don’t.” I squeeze his fingers, cutting him off before he can voice whatever farewell he’s preparing. “We’re not saying goodbye yet. We have work to do.”
His smile is soft, understanding. “You’re right. Where do we start?”
I flip the notebook to a fresh page, pen poised to begin documenting the network that’s shaped our entire lives. Outside, the wind continues its skeletal assault on the hunting lodge’s windows, but for the first time since Harper’s betrayal, I’m not afraid of the darkness beyond our temporary shelter.
The girl who once survived by becoming my father’s perfect spy is gone. In her place sits someone harder, more dangerous—someone who understands that the only way to truly escape monsters is to become something they fear more than their own shadows.
“We start,” I say, pressing pen to paper, “by teaching The Architect what happens when their victims stop running and start remembering everything.”
Chapter 28: The Safe Spot
Now
The hunting lodge feels different tonight—smaller somehow, as if the walls are closing in around our carefully constructed plans. Max sits cross-legged on the musty carpet, his laptop balanced on his knees as he sorts through financial documents by the flickering light of our makeshift fire. The glow catches the sharp angles of his face, transforming him into something almost ethereal against the backdrop of rotting wood and forgotten memories.
“Belle?” His voice cuts through the silence I hadn’t realized had fallen between us. “You’ve been staring at that same page for twenty minutes.”
I look down at the notebook in my hands, seeing the half-finished organizational chart that was supposed to map The Architect’s network. The pen hovers over incomplete connections, names that float in isolation because my mind keeps drifting to darker possibilities. Every shadow in this place could be hiding surveillance equipment. Every creak of settling wood could herald the arrival of Harper’s extraction team.
“I can’t stop thinking about David,” I admit, setting the notebook aside. “He’s in that hospital bed because of choices I made, because I chose to fight back instead of surrendering quietly.”
Max’s fingers pause on his keyboard. “Belle—”
“I know what you’re going to say. That it’s not my fault, that he knew the risks, that justice requires sacrifice.” My voice comes out rougher than intended, scraped raw by hours of guilt and second-guessing. “But knowing something intellectually and feeling it emotionally are completely different things.”
He closes the laptop with careful precision, setting it aside before moving to sit beside me on the worn couch. The cushions sag under our combined weight, springs protesting years of neglect and abandonment. Like everything else in our lives lately, this temporary sanctuary feels precarious, borrowed time that could collapse at any moment.
“Talk to me,” he says simply. “Not about strategy or evidence or next moves. About what’s really going on in that brilliant, terrifying mind of yours.”
The invitation to vulnerability should frighten me—after years of weaponizing every emotion, every revelation, every moment of genuine feeling, the idea of lowering my defenses feels like stepping naked into a battlefield. But looking at Max, seeing the exhaustion in his dark eyes that mirrors my own, I realize that keeping my walls up might be the most dangerous thing I could do right now.
“I’m scared,” I whisper, the words barely audible over the wind rattling our windows. “Not just of them finding us, or of what they’ll do if they catch us. I’m scared that this is all pointless. That we’re just delaying the inevitable while people we care about pay the price for our defiance.”
Max’s hand finds mine, fingers intertwining with the same deliberate care he brings to everything else. “What else?”
The question opens floodgates I didn’t know existed. “I’m scared that I’m becoming exactly what they trained me to be. Look at what we’re planning—surveillance, manipulation, psychological warfare. The same tactics my father used, just pointed in a different direction. What if fighting monsters requires becoming one?”
“Is that what you think you’re becoming?”
I close my eyes, trying to find an honest answer in the darkness behind my lids. “I don’t know. Sometimes I look in the mirror and see Richard Gallagher’s daughter—cold, calculating, willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to achieve her goals. Other times I see that eleven-year-old girl in the white dress, still trying to survive in a world that views her as disposable.”
“And what do you see when you look at me?”
The unexpected question makes my eyes snap open. Max is studying my face with an intensity that makes my breath catch, like he’s trying to memorize every detail before it’s too late.
“I see someone who chose to stand with me when it would’ve been easier to walk away,” I say, surprised by the steadiness in my voice. “Someone who makes me feel human instead of just functional. Someone I’m terrified of losing because I’m not sure I know how to exist without you anymore.”
The confession hangs between us like a bridge I’m not sure either of us is brave enough to cross. In the firelight, Max looks younger somehow, stripped of the careful composure that usually defines him. Vulnerable in a way I’ve rarely seen.
