Chapter Text
Parker surfaces slowly, as if rising through layers of warm, dark water she isn’t ready to leave. For a moment she clings to the softness of sleep, to the weightlessness that asks nothing of her. But the ache in her back is a merciless dull, insistent throb that drags her upward until consciousness snaps into place like a bone being set.
Her breath catches. The world sharpens.
Her throat feels scraped raw, desert‑dry. She turns her head, searching for the glass she remembers, or thinks she remembers, on the bedside table. The motion sends a spear of pain through her spine into her shoulder is so sudden and bright that she sees stars, fingers curling into the sheets as if she can anchor herself against it.
Before she can try again, a hand settles on her shoulder.
“Here,” Jarod murmurs, voice low and steady, as if he’s been waiting for this exact moment. “I’ve got it.”
He moves into her line of sight, close enough that she can feel the heat of him, the quiet urgency in the way he leans over her. He lifts the glass, guiding the straw to her lips with a gentleness that makes something in her chest twist.
“Sips, Parker.”
She obeys because she has no choice, because the pain is too sharp to argue, because his voice is a tether she can hold onto. The cool water hits her tongue, but the relief is short‑lived. Another spike of pain tears through her, ripping a cry from her throat. She jerks away from the straw, collapsing back onto the pillow as her breath shudders out of her in broken pieces.
“Careful,” Jarod whispers, leaning close enough that his breath ghosts over her cheek. “Breathe through it.”
“Easy for you to say,” she grumbles, though the words are thin, frayed at the edges. Still, she forces herself to breathe, slow, deliberate, searching for a rhythm that doesn’t hurt.
“I’ll get the painkillers,” he tells her.
“What… happened?” She manages, tracking him with half‑lidded eyes as he moves around the room.
“You were shot.”
“That much is obvious,” she deadpans, though the unimpressed look she tries to give him is softened by the haze of pain. He returns with the pills, steadying the glass again as she swallows them down with a sip. Her gaze drifts around the room, and recognition settles over her like a cold hand.
Her mother’s room. Ben’s house. Safety she didn’t choose.
Her stomach tightens.
The memory hits before she can stop it; the smell of jet fuel, the sting of cold air, the sound of gunfire slicing through the air.
They were stumbling. Her weight sags between them, her body refusing to cooperate. Jarod’s arm locked around her waist, Mr. Parker gripping her other side with a desperation he’d never seen in him. Bullets cracked against metal, ricocheting off the car behind them. Jarod ducks low, his arms shaking from the effort of keeping her upright.
Her blouse was soaked. Warm. Sticky. Too much blood.
Her eyes fluttered, each blink slower than the last. The world tilted, blurred, narrowed.
This has been one hell of a year for her.
Hospitals. A perforated ulcer. Thomas’s blood on her hands. And now this.
Her body had been pushed past its limits more than once. She isn’t sure how much more she can take. Jarod isn’t sure either. She can see it in the frantic set of his jaw, the way he kept glancing at her face as if willing her to stay conscious. To stay alive. To stay with him.
“Let me take her,” Jarod said, tightening the compress with fingers slick with her blood. She flinched at the pressure; a good sign, he told himself. She can feel something. That meant she was still here. Still with him.
Mr. Parker’s face was ashen, slack, shock hollowing him out. For a heartbeat, Jarod saw something human in him...fear, grief, the dawning realization that he might lose his daughter.
Then it vanished.
“She’s my daughter,” he snapped at the pretender, the Centre’s chairman slamming back into place like a mask.
“And that should mean something!” Jarod shot back. “She’ll die if she stays here. Put her first for once.”
“We can get her to the Centre for treatment.”
“Look around,” Jarod hissed as another bullet sparked off the car. “The Centre put a bullet in her that was meant for you. There is no help for her there.”
Parker blinks, the memory dissolving as the room comes back into focus. Jarod is watching her; worry etched into every line of his face.
“What about my father?” She asks, her voice is rough.
Jarod hesitates, just long enough for her to see the guilt flicker through him.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I called Sydney to tell him you were alive. He said your father and Brigitte have disappeared.”
She raises an eyebrow, a silent accusation, a silent question.
“The last time I saw them,” Jarod says quietly, “Brigitte was driving them away from the runway. I was more focused on saving your life, Parker.” His eyes meet hers, unflinching. “I’m not going to apologise for that.”
She sighs, soft, heavy, threaded with exhaustion and thoughts she can’t afford to unpack. “What’s the verdict, Doc? Will I live?”
“Prognosis is good,” he says, and the smile he gives her is quick but real. He checks her wound, his touch is careful but still enough to send a fresh wave of pain through her. “But it all hinges on you following doctor’s orders.”
She rolls her eyes. “Doctor’s orders? Or yours?”
“Same thing at the moment, Miss Parker.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” she glares at him...fierce, stubborn, a lioness with a thorn in her paw...but she doesn’t pull away. She can’t. “I’ve never been good with doctor’s orders. And we both know how I react when you try to order me about.”
There’s a hint of a smile on his face as he rolls his eyes. Good. Let him remember. He needs to remember that this is a temporary hiatus from the status quo.
“How long was I out?”
“A few days,” he says, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Ben will want to know you’re awake.”
She hums; the sound is low and tired. “What about your father?”
“He’s downstairs. He doesn’t want to cause you distress.”
Parker snorts softly. “Too late for that.”
Jarod rolls his eyes. Yeah, they’ll unpick that thread later.
“And the boy?” She asks, looking at his face carefully.
Jarod’s expression shifts from guilt to worry, then to something softer. “I haven’t had a moment to check on him since we got here.”
Parker sighs. “Well, I’m out of the woods now, Genius. Tag Ben in and go get to know the boy. He needs you more than I do.”
A beat. Then, softer: “Maybe help him pick out a name so we don’t have to call him Boy.”
Jarod lingers in the doorway, her eyes tracking him even as exhaustion pulls at her. She gives him a small, pointed nod...go...and only when she closes her eyes does he leave.
888
The hallway feels too quiet after the ragged breaths and whispered barbs of the bedroom. Jarod steps into it as though emerging from a storm. The door clicks shut behind him with a softness that feels at odds with the chaos still pounding in his chest.
He exhales slowly, grounding himself with the kind of deliberate breath he usually reserves for triage. The house smells faintly of cedar and old books...Ben’s house always has...but tonight the scent feels heavier, as if the walls themselves are holding their breath.
He moves downstairs, each step measured, though he can’t remember deciding to take them.
Charles looks up from the kitchen table the moment Jarod enters. The older man’s posture is straight, military‑precise, but his eyes soften with something like relief.
“She’s awake?” Charles asks.
Jarod nods, though the motion feels distant, as if his body is answering before his mind catches up. “She’s resting.”
Charles lets out a breath he’s been holding for hours. “She’s tough,” he murmurs, studying his son with a gaze that sees too much. “You two…” He trails off, unsure how to finish the question that has been on his mind since he saw his son scoop up the woman into his arms after she was shot. Desperate, frantic, Jarod didn’t stop until Miss Parker was stable.
Jarod doesn’t help him. He can’t. The words lodge somewhere behind his ribs, tangled with fear and something far more dangerous.
“It’s complicated,” he says instead. It’s the only truth he can manage to try to describe the relationship he has with his huntress when he can barely fathom it himself. “Where’s the boy?”
“In the den,” Charles replies. “Ben’s with him.”
Jarod nods again, but this time the motion is heavier. He feels it in his shoulders, in the tightness of his jaw, in the way his pulse stutters with anticipation and dread. He moves toward the den, each step weighted with the knowledge that nothing about this moment will be simple.
He pauses at the threshold.
The boy sits curled on the sofa, knees drawn up, Ben speaking to him in low, steady tones. The room is dim, lit only by a lamp in the corner, casting soft shadows that make the boy look even younger than he is.
When the boy senses Jarod’s presence, he lifts his head.
The resemblance still hits Jarod like a physical blow. He hopes he’s getting better at hiding it from his clone. He’s looking into a mirror, twenty years younger. The same eyes, the same guarded stillness, the same flicker of calculation behind fear. Is he a father or a brother?
Ben rises quickly. “Miss Parker is awake and asking for you,” Jarod says to the older man
Ben smiles, relief softening his features. “I know better than to ignore a summons.” He slips out, closing the door behind him.
Silence settles between Jarod and the boy. Not hostile, not cold, just heavy with everything unspoken.
The boy breaks it first. “I’m glad she’s okay.”
Jarod swallows. “So am I.”
The boy studies him, eyes sharp despite exhaustion. “I’m sorry I was afraid of you before.”
“There’s no need to apologise,” Jarod says softly. “The Centre lied to you your entire life. I would have come for you sooner if I knew you existed. I’m sorry it took so long to find you.”
The boy’s jaw tightens, a muscle ticking in his cheek. “She found me first.”
Jarod frowns. “Who?”
The boy looks down at his hands, then gestures towards the ceiling. “The woman upstairs.” A beat. “She’s the first person who didn’t get mad at me when I cried.”
Something in Jarod’s chest twists, sharp, unexpected.
“She found you,” he repeats, the words feeling too large in his mouth. “Before I did?”
“Yes,” the boy whispers. “I was crying and… she asked me if I wanted to be there. Then she hugged me. She said Mr Raines wouldn’t hurt me anymore, that we’d get out of there.”
His eyes lift, haunted. “Then Mr Raines came in…”
Jarod sinks onto the edge of the sofa, stunned. “Miss Parker… tried to get you out?” He clarifies.
“She wanted to,” the boy says, as if that matters most. And it is. “I think she was going to try if Mr Raines hadn’t arrived.”
“When?”
“The day before you rescued me.”
Jarod closes his eyes, absorbing the weight of it. Parker, alone, risking everything, not for him, not for herself, but for the boy who carries his face.
The truth settles in his chest like a bruise.
She would pull something like this now, he thinks. She would make a reckless, impossible choice because her heart moved faster than her fear. He sensed the change in her, but he never imagined this...that she’d extend compassion to the one person who represented everything she hated about the Centre, about her past, about him.
He tries not to think about the fact that they never had time to plan a rescue together. Their relationship devolved so much that they never even considered it. That neither of them was thinking beyond getting the boy out alive. That she took a bullet meant for her father and is now upstairs recovering from a wound she should not have survived.
He tries and fails. Maybe that bullet hit the intended target after all.
The boy’s voice pulls him back. “I’m glad she’s going to be okay.”
“So am I,” Jarod says again. Because they need to talk. Because this changes everything. Because hope, dangerous, fragile hope, for her, for them, stirs in him for the first time in years.
A long silence stretches between him and the boy, heavy but not uncomfortable.
Finally, the boy whispers, “Is she… like you?”
“No.” Jarod shakes his head gently, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “There’s only one Miss Parker.”
One is enough.
The boy nods, absorbing that, though it’s clear he doesn’t understand the subtext. Jarod understands that feeling well.
He leans forward, voice softening. “Did you ever have a name at the Centre? Other than your designation?”
The boy hesitates, then shakes his head. “No.”
Jarod feels something warm and painful twist in his chest. His thoughts drifting to the woman upstairs without permission. How Parker is guiding him to give the boy a choice no one ever gave him.
“Well,” Jarod says, offering a small, tentative smile, “I think that’s something we need to fix.”
The boy studies him, considering the idea. Then, slowly, he nods.
888
The days that follow settle into a rhythm that feels fragile, temporary...like a truce with pain rather than a victory over it.
Parker heals.
Too slowly by her own estimation. Too quickly by Jarod’s.
Jarod watches the process with a vigilance that borders on reverence. He doesn’t hover, not exactly, but he is always nearby. A shadow in the doorway. A quiet presence at her bedside. A steady hand when she shifts in the wrong way and the pain flares sharp enough to steal her breath when she pushes herself too far.
She hates needing him. She hates wanting him there even more.
Only she never tells him to leave.
Not once.
Her strength returns in increments she pretends not to notice. The first time she sits up without wincing, Jarod’s shoulders loosen in a way he doesn’t comment on. The first time she reaches for the glass herself, he pretends he wasn’t already moving to help.
And the first time she swings her legs over the side of the bed, testing her weight, he’s there before she can fall.
“Easy,” he murmurs, hands steadying her elbows.
She glares at him, but her fingers curl into his forearms for balance. “I’m not made of glass.”
“No,” he says softly. “You’re made of something much harder.”
She doesn’t know what to do with the warmth in his voice, so she looks away.
Not once does he tell her that he knows about her visit with the boy or what it means to him. Not once does he ask her about what happens next. He’s afraid of her answer.
When Jarod helps Ben and his father with a flat tyre on Ben’s truck, the boy takes his turn to keep the injured woman company, introducing himself as Matthew two days after Jarod posed the challenge to name himself.
888
The house is quiet when she wakes up. Not from a heavy, pain‑drug induced sleep she’s been waking from, but something lighter, clearer. The kind of clarity that feels like a warning.
Her back aches, but not enough to stop her though.
The phone sits on the bedside table, screen dark, waiting.
She stares at it for a long moment before reaching for it. Her fingers tremble from exhaustion, from something she refuses to name, but she dials the number from memory.
Sydney answers on the second ring.
“Jarod?” His voice is soft, cautious, as if he’s afraid the connection will be lost if he might vanish if he speaks too loudly.
“Not this time, Syd,” she exhales. “I’m alive.”
“Parker!” A breath of relief crackles through the line. “Thank God. It’s good to hear your voice. Broots has been beside himself.”
She closes her eyes. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
She ignores that. “What’s happening at the Centre?”
There’s a pause, the kind that tells her everything before he says a word.
“Sydney,” Parker prompts.
He sighs. “Lyle is in charge.”
Her stomach drops, cold and sharp. “Of course he is.”
“Your father is… missing,” Sydney continues gently. “No one has seen him since the runway.”
Parker’s breath stutters. She presses a hand to her forehead, willing the room to stop tilting. “And Raines?”
Another pause. Longer. Heavier.
“Sydney.”
“He’s been sent for re‑education.”
She goes still. Re‑education. Renewal Wing. The Centre’s polite term for punishment.
Her pulse thuds in her ears. “On who’s orders?”
She wants to know who thought it was a good idea to deprive her of revenge on the man responsible for the hole in her back.
“Mutumbo,” Sydney says quietly. “He’s delegating power to Lyle to deal with as he deems fit. He’s already begun reshuffling departments. People are frightened.”
Of course they are. Lyle with unchecked authority from Mutumbo is a loaded gun with no safety.
“And me?” she asks, though she already knows.
“You’re expected back,” Sydney says. “Lyle has been lobbying Mutumbo for a T‑Board to be assembled the moment you return.”
She lets out a breath that trembles despite her best efforts. “Of course he has.”
“Parker,” Sydney says gently, “You’re injured. You’re vulnerable. No one would blame you for staying away until you heal. But I should warn you, Lyle has bought in someone new.”
She closes her eyes. She should have known. Lyle has contacts who don’t hold the same morals or live by the same rules she and her team adhere to. Perfect.
“Anyone we know?”
“Broots is looking for everything he can find about Mr White.”
Mr White.
“How is Scrappy Doo?”
“Missing Scooby,” Sydney comments.
Parker huffs out a laugh at that. “Just because I’m not there, doesn’t mean that you’re not going to pay for that when I come back.”
“I look forward to it, Miss Parker.” Sydney chuckles. “Broots is as concerned as I have been,” he intones. “Mr White describes himself as a finder. Broots overheard he and Mr Lyle mention a priority project named ‘Silence’.”
A finder, huh.
Parker opens her eyes, cocks an eyebrow even though Sydney can’t see her. She thinks of every reason she has to stay away, to disappear.
She thinks of Jarod and the way he looked at her when she woke, the way he looks at her when he checks her wound.
Then she remembers why she needs to go back.
She thinks of Thomas. She thinks of her father. She thinks of the boy downstairs who flinched when she touched him and then clung to her hand like it was the only safe thing he’d ever known.
“I have to come back,” she whispers. “I don’t have a choice.”
“Parker?” Sydney asks, and the question is so gentle it almost breaks her. She can picture him in his office. The look on his face mirrored in his tone. “It’s too soon.”
“Your boy is taking good care of me, Syd. Besides, I need to,” she says. “Can’t let Lyle think he’s going to rule in hell unchallenged.”
Sydney is silent for a long moment. When he speaks again, his voice is thick with something like grief. “Be careful, Parker.”
She swallows hard. “Always am.”
“That’s not true,” he says softly.
She almost smiles. “No. It’s not.”
“Call me when you’re ready,” he says. “I’ll do what I can.”
“I know you will.”
She hangs up before the tremor in her voice can betray her.
The room feels colder when the call ends. Quieter. Sharper.
She sits there for a long moment, staring at the dark screen, the weight of the Centre settling over her like a familiar, suffocating cloak.
When she finally lies back down, she knows sleep won’t come.
And she knows exactly what she has to do.
888
It doesn’t take long for restlessness to set in.
Less than an hour after talking to Sydney, she starts tapping her fingers against the blanket, the way her eyes track the door as if expecting someone to burst through it. Jarod notices. Of course he does. He notices everything about her, even the things she tries to hide.
He watches her sit up straighter. He watches her test her limits. He watches her mind begin to move again, fast, sharp, dangerous.
And he knows.
She’s thinking. Planning. Pulling threads only she can see.
He feels the shift like it’s a change in air pressure.
She’s going back.
The realization hits him with a cold clarity that settles deep in his bones. He doesn’t confront her, not straight away. He’s afraid he’ll push her into leaving sooner than she’s ready.
He waits. Hoping he’s wrong. He knows he isn’t.
He doesn’t have to wait for long until she lets him in on her plan.
It happens in the evening, when the light outside has turned the color of bruised lavender and the house has gone quiet in that way old houses do, as if holding its breath.
Just as Jarod is about to leave her side for the night, Parker finally tells.
“I need to get back to the Centre.”
The words land like a blow.
Jarod stops mid‑stride, as if the floor has been pulled out from beneath him. His breath leaves him in a sharp, involuntary exhale.
“No,” he says, the word raw. “Absolutely not.”
“I wasn’t asking for your permission,” she replies, voice steady in a way that makes his pulse spike.
“They put a bullet in you,” he snaps. “You could have died on that runway.”
“That bullet wasn’t meant for me.”
“That’s supposed to make this easier?” He steps closer, jaw tight, eyes bright with something too fierce to name. “Your father isn’t there Parker, he can’t protect you. You walk back in and they’ll finish the job they started.”
“It’s my life,” she fires back. “My decision. My responsibility. Consider your conscience clear, Jarod.”
Jarod laughs once, sharp and disbelieving. “You think this is about responsibility? Parker, this is suicide.”
She lifts her chin, defiant. “I’ve survived worse.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?” She demands, pushing herself upright despite the pain. “That I won’t let you drag me into your crusade? That I won’t run just because you think you know what’s best for me?”
His voice drops, rough, on the verge of breaking. “I think you deserve better than bleeding out on a concrete floor while Raines decides whether you’re worth the oxygen.”
The words hit her like a slap.
Her eyes flick away, not in to give him the reaction he wants, but in self‑defense.
Jarod sees it and presses on.
“You want to go back to the people who shot you. To the man who would’ve let you die.”
“Don’t,” she warns, but her voice betrays her.
“You want to go back,” he says, softer now, “instead of letting me help you.”
She swallows hard. “I don’t need your help.”
“Yes, you did,” he insists. “And you still do.”
“I never asked you to!” She snaps, the words brittle and sharp. “You think I’m going to let you play hero? Patch me up, whisk me away, fix my life? That’s not how this works.”
“I’m not trying to fix your life,” Jarod says. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“Well, you’re doing a terrible job,” she fires back. “Because I’m still tied to the Centre. Still looking for answers. Still—”
“Still willing to die for them.”
Her breath catches. A small, involuntary sound she hates herself for.
He steps closer, voice barely above a whisper. “Why, Parker? Why go back after everything they’ve done to you?”
“Lyle bought someone in.”
His eyes sharpen, instantly alert. “Who?”
“Sydney said his name is Mr White, he’s associated with a project called ‘Silence’. I’ve never heard of him, but he’s a self-proclaimed finder according to Syd.”
Jarod looks down at his hands. They’re itching for his laptop to start searching for any information he can find on Mr White. He feels the chance to talk her out of leaving slipping away quickly.
She closes her eyes, the answer clawing its way up her throat. “One of us has to go back before he finds us and the boy. I can’t risk Ben like that, my mother wouldn’t...”
“We can figure it out. We can...” Jarod tries again.
“You think it’s what I want?” Parker shakes her head, cutting off his words. “I’ve spent three years hunting you, just so I could get some semblance of freedom. The last thing you should want is me travelling with you.” She takes a breath.
“You went to Matthew,” Jarod says simply.
“You were never meant to know about that,” Parker replies softly, looking into his eyes. She knows he’s trying to figure out her motivation. She changes the subject to stop him looking at her the way he is. “Look, right now, I need to be at The Centre. I have my own unfinished business that I can’t walk away from.”
Jarod cocks his head to the side in silent askance.
Her voice breaks on the next word. “Thomas.”
Jarod freezes. The name hangs between them like a blade.
“They killed a kind, innocent man to prove a point,” Parker continues, the words sliding out of her painfully. “They’re never letting me go.”
Jarod’s eyes meet hers, brimming with unshed tears. They’re both so lost, resigned to their fate.
“It doesn’t matter if I bring you back, neither of us will ever be free,” she tells him. A tiny tear escapes down her cheek.
Jarod steps forward, his hand rising to wipe it away, only she stops him by holding her hand up between them.
“I’m not telling you that I’m going back to start a fight, Jarod. I’m telling you because you deserve to know why.” She looks away. “Now let me go, before I say something I can’t take back.”
He hesitates...one heartbeat, two...torn between staying and respecting the boundary she’s drawing with shaking hands.
“You don’t have to keep fighting me.”
She let out a humorless breath. “I don’t know how to do anything else.”
He leaves her room before he says something he can’t take back.
888
Jarod doesn’t remember leaving her room.
One moment he’s staring at the door she shut him out of, the echo of her voice still vibrates in his chest like a bruise he can’t soothe and the next, he’s in the kitchen, bracing both hands on the counter as if the room might tilt without warning.
His breath won’t settle. His vision tunnels. His hands shake like he’s still holding pressure on a wound that won’t stop bleeding.
The wood beneath his palms creaks. He doesn’t loosen his grip.
Ben turns from the kettle, takes one look at him, and pauses. There’s no need for questions. The answer is written all over Jarod’s face.
“She told you,” Ben says quietly.
Jarod lets out a sound that isn’t quite a laugh and isn’t quite a breath. “She’s going back,” he says, voice raw. “She was shot, Ben. And she still wants to walk right back into the place that pulled the trigger.”
Ben studies him for a long moment, the kind of look that sees past the words to the wound beneath them. “I had to watch Catherine do the same thing,” he says softly. “Over and over.”
Jarod’s grip tightens until his knuckles go white.
“It wasn’t my decision,” Ben continues. “And this isn’t yours.”
Jarod sinks into a chair, elbows on his knees, head hanging. He looks like a man trying to hold himself together with nothing but breath and willpower. “What do I do?”
Ben doesn’t hesitate. “Let her know you’ll be there for her when she’s ready to leave.”
Jarod’s breath shudders. “What if she never is?”
Ben steps closer, resting a steady hand on his shoulder. “Then you be there for her anyway. From whatever distance she needs.”
Jarod closes his eyes; the truth hitting harder than any argument upstairs. “She doesn’t know.”
Ben chuckles, a soft, sad sound. “I think she knows more than either of you will ever admit.”
Jarod looks up, confused and unamused.
Ben’s expression softens, kind and almost pitying, as if he aches for the things Jarod can’t yet see. “Half the time, I think the reason you fight with each other so easily is because it’s so hard to fight how you really feel. You’re both pent up, bursting with emotion. There has to be a release valve.” The older man huffs fondly. “You two tend to let rip because it’s expected, it’s easier to fight than dealing with the truth.”
“Believe me Ben, it’s not all for appearances. Parker and I know exactly what buttons to push when we need to.”
“I know,” Ben consoles him. “Have you considered you’re pushing those buttons because you’re afraid of what you feel? And you need something to hide behind?”
Jarod doesn’t answer. He won’t lie to Ben by denying his words.
But something in him shifts, not understanding, not yet, but beginning to. A slow, reluctant settling of resolve, earned through pain.
888
Matthew hovers in the doorway the same way he did the first time he approached her bed. Small, uncertain, but this time without hesitation in his eyes. Just worry. Pure and unfiltered.
Parker notices him before he speaks. She always does. “You heard,” she says.
He nods, stepping inside. “Jarod’s upset.”
“Jarod is always upset,” she mutters, but the line has no bite. She sighs, sinking back against the pillows. “We have a tendency to bring out the worst in each other.”
Matthew doesn’t smile. He comes closer, stopping at her bedside. “You’re going back.”
It isn’t a question.
Parker exhales slowly. “Yes.”
He looks down at his hands, twisting his fingers together the way he does when he’s trying not to show fear. “They hurt you.”
“I’ve been hurt before.”
“That’s not the same,” he says quietly.
Parker’s throat tightens. She hates that he sees her as clearly as his older brother without really knowing her. She hates it and aches for it at the same time.
“You don’t have to go back,” Matthew adds. “You could stay. With us.”
Parker closes her eyes for a moment, the weight of his words settling over her like a blanket she can’t quite pull around herself. “It’s not that simple.”
“It is to me,” he says. “You’re the only person who has ever…” He stops, swallowing hard. His voice breaks. “You’re the first person who cared about what I want.”
The words hit her harder than anything Jarod said.
She looks away, blinking against the sting behind her eyes. “Have you thought about what you want?”
Matthew steps closer, voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t want them to hurt you again.”
Once again, she feels like she’s eleven years old sitting with an eleven year old Jarod. Internally, she berates herself for thinking of him that way. Matthew deserves to be thought of as his own person, not just as a clone of the boy she grew up with. Harder said than done though.
She considers her own motives, wondering if what she is about to do to protect this child is because of him or the guilt she’s pushed deep inside of her for being unable to protect Jarod when they were children.
She reaches out, slow and careful, so she doesn’t spook him. Matthew immediately takes her hand, gripping it with surprising strength.
“One day I hope to see you again,” she promises.
“You can’t promise me that,” he replies sadly.
“No,” she admits. “But I can try.”
Matthew nods, blinking fast. “Jarod’s scared.”
“So are you,” she says softly.
He doesn’t deny it.
“Tell him I’ll be fine,” she says.
“But I don’t believe that,” Matthew shakes his head. “And he won’t believe me.”
Parker sighs. “No. He won’t.” She searches his face. “Promise me that you’ll live your life the way you want to live it. Then tell me how wonderful it is the next time we see each other again.”
Matthew still looks doubtful but she can’t do any more. She won’t be the one guiding him through his new life. Eventually, Matthew squeezes her hand once more before slipping out of the room, leaving her alone with the weight of her choice, only it’s heavier now, because it isn’t just her burden anymore.
888
She senses him before she sees him, a shadowy presence in the doorway, respectful but steady. She turns her head and finds Major Charles standing there, hands clasped behind his back, posture military‑straight yet with gentle eyes.
“May I?” he asks.
Parker nods.
He steps inside and closes the door softly behind him. For a moment he simply stands there, studying her with a gaze that is far too knowing for her comfort. The last time they were this close, she was holding his gun on him.
“Jarod told you,” she says.
“He didn’t need to,” Charles replies. “Both of my sons care for you, Miss Parker. Both are very upset by your decision.”
She doesn’t deny it. She can’t. The truth sits between them like a living thing.
“I may not know everything that has happened between you and Jarod,” Charles continues, “but I know enough to know that you are in this together. And nothing will change that, no matter if you’re in the Centre or not.”
“You understand why I’m going back, don’t you?” When Charles nods, Parker’s eyes drop to her hands on the comforter. “Then help me,” she says quietly. “Help me talk some sense into Jarod.”
“I’m not sure he’ll listen to me,” Charles studies her for a long moment. “He’s stubborn, like me.”
Parker lifts her chin defiantly. “Not as stubborn as I am.”
Charles smirks, so much like his eldest. “I’ve seen that look before.”
Parker lifts her head, arching an eyebrow. “On who?”
“Catherine,” he says simply.
The name disarms her more than she expects.
Charles moves closer, pulling a chair to her bedside. “She carried the same weight you do. The same sense of responsibility. The same belief that she alone could fix what was broken.”
Parker swallows. “Did she?”
“No,” Charles says gently. “But she tried. And she tried alone.”
Parker looks away, jaw tightening. “She died trying.”
Charles continues, voice soft but firm. “You remind me of her. Not because of your pain, but because of your courage.”
Parker’s breath stutters.
He leans forward slightly. “But courage doesn’t mean walking back into the fire because you think you deserve to burn.”
Her eyes flick to him, sharp and defensive. “I’m not doing this for me.”
“I know,” Charles says. “That’s what worries me.”
Silence stretches between them, not hostile, but heavy.
Finally, Parker speaks. “I have unfinished business.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Charles replies. “But you don’t have to face it alone.”
Parker huffs a humorless laugh. “That’s not how my life works.”
Charles studies her for a long moment. “It could.”
She doesn’t answer.
He rises, pausing at the door. “For what it’s worth… Catherine trusted that you and Jarod would find your way back to one another to finish her work someday.”
Parker freezes.
Charles softens. “And so do I.”
He looks away briefly. “If you think Jarod and Matthew are upset now, I don’t know how they’re going to be if you endure the same fate as your mother.”
He leaves her with that, a truth she didn’t ask for, and one she can’t quite bear to hold.
888
The night air is cool when she steps outside, the kind of cool that settles into the bones and makes everything feel sharper. Parker moves slowly down the porch steps, one hand brushing the railing for balance she pretends she doesn’t need.
She’s halfway down when she notices him.
Cast in shadow, Jarod sits on the bottom step, elbows on his knees, hands clasped under his chin. Still, silent, braced for impact. He looks like he’s been carved out of worry. The porch light casts just enough light to see him, catching the tension in his shoulders, the exhaustion in his eyes.
He doesn’t look at her when he speaks.
“I get it, Parker. I really do.”
She adjusts the strap of her holster, though they both know she shouldn’t be wearing it yet. “Do you?”
“I’m not okay with your decision,” he says quietly. “But I understand it.”
She lowers herself onto the step beside him, leaving just enough space to breathe. The wood is cool beneath her, grounding. “One of us has to be there. And it’s not going to be you.”
He huffs a humorless breath. “I know.”
“It wouldn’t be fair to leave Sydney, Broots, or Angelo wondering what happened to me. They’ve done too much for both of us.” She pauses, the next words heavier. “And someone murdered Thomas. I can’t walk away from that.”
Jarod’s jaw tightens. “I know.”
She studies him. The set of his mouth, the tension in his hands, the way he keeps looking at the ground instead of at her. “I’m sorry this is how it has to be.”
He finally turns his head, and the look in his eyes nearly undoes her. Raw. Unshielded. “I’m trying to accept it,” he says. “That’s the best I can do.”
She swallows. “I need something from you.”
He nods once, slow. “Name it.”
“A truce,” she says. “No withholding. No secrets. If either of us finds something, we share it.”
He considers her for a long moment. “No tricks?”
“Well, we have to keep up appearances,” she says, a ghost of a smirk tugging at her mouth. “And you can’t help yourself.”
That earns a small smirk from him.
“But yes,” she says softly. “That’s what I’m suggesting.”
“Okay,” he says. “A truce.”
Jarod sighs. “I’ll try to refrain from tormenting you. However, I make no promises that you won’t be collateral damage when I focus on Lyle.”
She rolls her eyes, but the gesture is fond, dangerously so. Then she sobers, the weight of his words settling between them. “Wait? You’re going back to pretends? What about your father? Matthew?”
Jarod shrugs, but the motion is tight, controlled. “You were right. Just like you, I need to go back. I would put them at risk by staying with them, just as staying with Ben would put him at risk.” A beat. “Besides, if you’re there, I want to be in a position to help if you need it.”
She looks at him and for a moment, the mask slips. Fear. Longing. Exhaustion. History. All of it flickers across her face before she pulls herself back together.
“You could walk away,” she says. “Disappear. Take care of Matthew.”
Jarod shakes his head. “Staying with Matthew would be too dangerous for him,” he tells her. “He needs our father more than me, more than I need my father right now.”
Parker breathes in, feeling her eyes sting. This is everything he’s ever wanted. “He needs you, too.”
“And I plan to be there for him,” Jarod replies. “But like you, I want answers. About me, my mother, my sister. If I walk away without them, I’ll never be truly free.”
Their eyes hold onto one another in a way they shouldn’t, a way that feels like a confession neither of them is ready to voice.
“Watch your back, Parker.”
“Only if you do the same,” she replies, almost too quiet to hear.
He swallows his smile at her words. She hesitates, glancing around at the night. She takes a breath.
“Thank you Jarod,” she says quietly.
“For what?”
Parker huffs out a laugh, looking at him slightly incredulous. She gestures over her should at the inn. “Patching me up,” as if it explains everything. “Who knows what would have happened if you hadn’t.”
Their eyes hold, fighting against all instincts to look away and re-erect that glass wall.
“You know what would have happened, Miss Parker,” Jarod says after a moment that feels longer than it was.
“I better make a move,” she glances at her watch on her right wrist. She’s missing the weight on her left one. She pushes herself off the step, pausing just long enough that he could reach out and stop her if he wanted to.
He doesn’t. Instead he holds out a slip of paper. She takes it from him before starting towards the car. She won’t use the phone number unless she has to. He knows that.
“Anytime you need me to play doctor, Miss Parker, just let me know,” he says.
She stops mid‑stride, looks over her shoulder, eyes sharp and amused.
“If I ever need a doctor, Jarod, you’ll be the last one I call. You’re a little too… hands‑on for my liking. And you already know I’m terrible at following doctor’s orders.”
Jarod’s smile, bright in the dark, meets his eyes. “No, you’re better at giving orders rather than following them, Miss Parker.”
“And don’t you forget it, Genius,” Parker retorts in her best Ice Queen voice. She can’t help the tiny smirk that forms.
She doesn’t give him another chance to respond as she unlocks the door, the click loud in the quiet night. The engine turns over, headlights washing the porch in pale gold.
Jarod stays where he is, hand gripping the banister so tightly his knuckles whiten, watching her silhouette dissolve into the darkness.
He doesn’t call after her. He doesn’t chase her. He doesn’t break.
But something in him aches as the taillights disappear down the road.
The night settles around him, heavy and still.
And for the first time since she woke, he lets himself whisper the truth into the empty air:
“Stay safe Parker.”