Page 26 of Beyond Protection
When I extract you, you'll never have to perform again.
"They think they're saving me," he said quietly.
I took the phone from his hand. Our fingers brushed.
Mac's breath caught. Barely audible.
I forced myself to focus on the message.
"Saving you from what they perceive as damaging conditions." I handed the phone back and kept space between us. "They'retreating you like an artwork in crisis. Something requiring controlled restoration."
"That's fucking terrifying."
"Yeah."
Clinical obsession was patient. Persistent. Convinced of its own righteousness.
"I'll run countersurveillance," I said. "Map their patterns the way they've mapped yours."
"You think you'll find them?"
"They've been close enough to document you for eighteen months. That leaves evidence." I headed for the door. "Someone alone with a laptop at the same coffee shop. Same corner seat. Someone in a parked car too many mornings. Someone walking your route but maintaining distance."
"That sounds like half of Seattle."
"There's a difference between unremarkable and consistent. Come on," I said. "Let's get out of here."
***
We sat together in my rental car outside the building. Engine running.
Mac typed something on his phone. Put it away. Pulled it out again. The compulsive checking had returned.
I started driving. It began to rain, and the wipers beat a steady rhythm. Traffic was light. It was after rush hour, the city's brief exhale.
"This morning," Mac said. "You said the last time someone trusted you, you hesitated."
My hands tightened on the wheel.
I prepared to deflect, but we'd been too honest when I met him at a local coffee shop.
"The betrayal was only part of the story," I said. Eyes on the road. "I saw the threat approaching, but I thought we'd cleared him, so I hesitated."
The wipers beat. One-two. One-two.
"She didn't make it," I said.
Silence from Mac.
Then: "My rookie year, I made an error in the playoffs. Routine ground ball. I'd fielded a thousand just like it." His voice was flat. "I hesitated. Just for a second. Thinking instead of reacting. It went through my legs. We lost."
I glanced at him.
"After," Mac continued, "everyone wanted to talk about it. Sports psychologists. Hitting coaches. My teammates said it happened to everyone. And I just kept thinking—they're right. It does happen. But it happened when it mattered most." He looked out at the rain. "So yeah. I get it. The part where one second changes everything."
His words lifted some weight off my shoulders.
It wasn't absolution. Mac wasn't offering that. Just recognition. The understanding of someone who'd lived in that same frozen moment where everything went wrong.
