na stood across the street from it for a full minute before she made herself cross, watching the doors swallow a steady stream of people in expensive suits, none of them glancing

t heavier than a piece of

card tucked into her coat pocket with an address and a floor number, and not because she

ree people who all looked like they could end a fight before it started, and a wall of

felt ridiculous saying it, like she was a d

k who she was. "Mr. Vale is exp

stepped into a different world, glass walled offices, people moving with the clipped urge

e man from th

m the way soldiers listen to someone who has kept them alive before. His voice carried without being raised. Whatever he

as open and her feet had a mind of their own, and by the time she

he said, to the table, not to her, and the six people filed out past her without a w

mean to

he said.

ed terrifi

He walked toward her, and she was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of how the room's

yself this was insane, that I should turn around

stoppe

ng invisible across a parking lot like it weighed

s face, there and gone. "What were you tel

e days earlier." His tone was even, but there was steel underneath it. "In my line of work, mistakes

talk to everyone

es I expect

ou'd give m

em. I didn't say tod

n, a slow spreading heat under her skin, and when she looked down, a mark was rising there, thin dark li

anged entirely, every trace of

Her hands were

rk better. His touch was warm, careful, and completely at odds with the sharp focus in his eyes. Around them, the office kept m

e," he sai

e scar

y, and Elena felt something under her skin respond to the nearness of his hand, a pull she had

yet," he murmured, mor

t does th

n an office with the door open, that much was clear in the sudden, deliberate way he steppe

d finally. "I haven't seen

l me what

oward the people still moving through the office like

movement, aware of the mark still burning faintly under her collar. She didn't tell him about the text