Page 5 of Damian
His eyes locked on mine, fierce and unyielding. “No. It’sours. But if you step into this war, love, you don’t get to break.”
My pulse raced, but my chin lifted anyway. “Then teach me how not to.”
For the first time, I saw something flicker behind his gray steel eyes—surprise. Maybe even respect.
And I knew this battle had only just begun.
4
Damian
We spent the next hour moving like a machine: coffee in paper cups, inventory checks, maps spread across the kitchen table like a conspiracy. Cyclone handled comms, River ran radio checks, and I paced the edges, eyes never leaving Morgan. She moved through the room like a small, tense animal — alert, but reluctant to make herself known. That worried me more than her feistiness had earlier.
She sat on the sofa, knees pulled to her chest, bare feet tucked under her. Every so often she’d rub the tender skin on her wrists, like that physical memory could hide the rest of it.
“You’ll need to talk less and listen more,” I said finally, crouching across from her. It wasn’t an order so much as a strategy. “Traffickers like Luthor work on sound. They plant doubt, confusion. You make noise — emotional noise — and you give them leverage.”
Her eyes flicked up — quick, anxious. “I’m not a spy,” she whispered. “I’m a writer. I—”
“You’re a woman whose kid sister was taken. That’s motive. Be that, not bravado.” I kept my voice quiet. When Ispoke softly, people tended to hear the thing I wanted them to.
She scuffed at the floor with her toe. “I keep thinking I could have done something different. Called someone sooner. Not been stupid.” The words tumbled out fast, brittle. “I write monsters into books and then I— I don’t know. I think about the worst, and I can’t stop.”
“You can’t let guilt be your steering wheel,” I said. “It’ll drive you straight into danger.”
Morgan huffed a small, humorless laugh. “I was writing a scene last week — a man in a white van —” She stopped herself and pressed a hand to her mouth. The way she said it made my jaw tighten. Coincidence peppered with imagination was how Luthor stayed invisible.
“You said you saw patterns,” I prompted. “What patterns?”
She looked at me like she was deciding whether to let someone into a secret. That look — the slow, careful weighing — told me she wanted to be useful, but didn’t know how.
“I dug through forums, court records, shipping manifests,” she said. “Little notes, names that kept popping up. Shell companies. A van registry with unusual write-offs. It all pinned together like a jigsaw. I… I thought it would make the book better. I didn’t expect it to be a thing.” Her voice broke on the last sentence.
“Good,” I said. It wasn’t the right word, but it was the honest one. “Because thinking is what real help, looks like. You noticed. Now you need to notice with us.”
She blinked, surprise softening her features. “You actually want me to help.”
“I do,” I said. “But on our terms. That means structure. That means we teach you to sift, not spiral. You keep your head, and we’ll make sure it’s attached to the right plan.”
She swallowed. “What plan?”
I straightened. “Find the network. Use what you already found. We tighten the net. You are going to read three documents tonight and tell Cyclone the differences between them. No guesswork. Just facts. Then, you stay out of the field until we say otherwise. Understand?”
Her breath hitched. Pride and relief warred on her face. “Yes.”
“Good.” I flicked my gaze toward the map on the table. “We start with Luthor’s known associates. You cross-reference the names you found with shipping routes, then with the van registry. Cyclone will handle the technical bit. River and I will feed that into the on-ground intel. You keep your head. You keep your mouth shut.”
She nodded quickly, eager to prove she could. “I can do facts.”
“Then do facts,” I said. “And when you feel that urge to speak — the one that makes you voice the story inside your head — tuck it away and write it down on paper. Verbally rehearse nothing.” I saw the flicker of something like a private joke in her eyes — a writer being told not to narrate her own life.
She made a soft sound, almost a laugh, but it came out as a mumble under her breath. I leaned in because I wanted to catch it, not to embarrass her — a habit, a flaw. “’He pulled the van close…’” she said, the line hanging there like a petal.
I didn’t comment. I’d noticed the mumbling earlier — little snatches of prose she thought were private. It would be a small mercy to let it go now and let her keep some of her humanity inside her head. We’d use the same kindness later — to pry open the habit when it became dangerous.
“Right,” I said. “We’ll start late tonight. You review. Node three, then four. No exceptions.”
She watched me like someone watching a lighthouse, eyes hungry for guidance. “And if I hear anything?” she asked.
