Page 76 of Brass
His hand rises, fingers brushing a strand of hair from my face with surprising gentleness. “You’re remarkable, you know that?”
The compliment catches me off guard. “What makes you say that?”
“Most people would have broken by now.” His eyes hold mine, unwavering. “After everything you’ve been through—finding your source dead, being hunted, the crash, the subway,days on the run. Yet here you are, not just surviving but adapting. Learning. Evolving.”
Something warm unfurls in my chest at his words. “I have a good teacher.”
“No.” He shakes his head once, definitively. “You already had it in you.”
The moment stretches between us, charged with something more complex than mere attraction. Recognition, perhaps.
Understanding.
The awareness that whatever exists between us has moved beyond the physical connection we’ve discovered.
His eyes drop to my lips, and I know what comes next—what I want to come next—but as he leans forward, the radio we took from the tactical team crackles to life.
“All units, we have a possible target signature on a traffic cam, westbound Highway 12. Vehicle description unknown. Facial recognition 72% probability match for primary target.”
Ryan pulls back, instantly alert. “They’ve picked up our trail.” He starts the engine. “But they’re looking in the wrong place. Highway 12 is thirty miles south of us.”
“How?” I ask, confusion momentarily overriding disappointment at our interrupted moment.
“Decoys.” He guides the Chevelle back onto the dirt track, tires kicking up dust. “False positives. Phoenix’s algorithm is good, but it’s not perfect. It’s identifying patterns that match ours but aren’t us.”
“So we’re still safe?” I secure my seatbelt as we accelerate.
“For now.” His expression is grim. “But it means they’re expanding the search grid, allocating more resources. We need to be even more unpredictable.”
By late afternoon, we’ve traversed rural landscapes that few tourists—and fewer commercial vehicles—ever see. Ryan’s knowledge of backroads seems encyclopedic, as if he hasmemorized every possible route that doesn’t appear on standard GPS maps.
“How do you know these roads?” I ask as we rumble over a wooden bridge that looks like it hasn’t seen maintenance since the 1950s.
“Tactical preparation.” He navigates around a pothole that would swallow a smaller car. “Cerberus maintains classified route networks across every state. Evacuation paths, exfiltration corridors, supply lines that stay off main grids.”
“You memorized all of them?”
He shrugs, the movement casual despite what it reveals about his mental capacity. “Part of the job. Routes, safe houses, emergency caches. The infrastructure of survival when digital systems fail—or are compromised.”
I wonder, not for the first time, about this man who moves through the world with such careful preparation. Who anticipates threats that most people never imagine. Whose life is constructed around protection and survival.
“You never really disconnect, do you?” The question slips out before I can filter it.
His eyebrow lifts slightly. “Meaning?”
“You’re always—operational.” I gesture vaguely. “Always scanning, assessing, planning contingencies. Even when we were…” I feel heat rise in my cheeks. “Even in the motel, you positioned yourself between me and the door. Maintained sightlines to all entry points.”
Something softens in his expression. “Force of habit.”
“Is it exhausting? Living that way?”
He considers this longer than I expect, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. “I don’t know any other way to be,” he admits finally. “It’s not a switch I can turn off.”
The simple honesty of his answer strikes me more powerfully than any deflection could have. There’s vulnerability in thatadmission—acknowledging that the hypervigilance that keeps him alive also separates him from a normal, everyday existence.
“What about you?” he asks, turning the question back on me. “Always chasing stories. Always digging for truths people want buried. Always putting yourself at risk for revelations that most of the world ignores. Is that exhausting?”
It’s my turn to consider. “Sometimes,” I concede. “But it feels necessary. Like there’s this compulsion to uncover what’s hidden. To expose what’s wrong.”
