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Payton’s eyelids fluttered open, the world blurring then righting itself. His head throbbed, and he once more felt like he’d spent the last eight hours on the world’s worst amusement park ride. He longed for the days where he didn’t feel like he was on rough seas. He just wanted to sleep…with Boone—under Boone—where nothing could get to him. Nothing but Boone, anyway.

He was in Boone’s apartment. On his couch. He lifted his head up and instantly regretted it, groaning like an old man. When he saw nobody, his confusion only grew. Where was Boone? What had happened? The last thing he remembered was hearing an alarm and that hiss of gas.

“Wha’ happened?” he managed, eyes going wide when he heard his rough voice and slurred speech.

“He’s awake,” he heard Gift chirp excitedly from somewhere within the room, then two faces peered down at him expectantly. Remi was with him. He looked more exhausted than Payton had ever seen him. Like he’d been through a war.

They helped him sit up slowly. He glanced up at them and croaked, “Water?”

Remi’s mouth formed an exaggerated O, face flushing like he was mad he hadn’t thought to ask. Then he nodded, disappearing into the kitchen. Less than thirty seconds later, he was pushing a glass of water into Payton’s hand. But it might as well have been an hour.

Payton’s mouth was bone dry, his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth. It was like he’d spent the last six hours dragging his tongue across the desert sands. He downed the glass in one go. It was the best water he’d ever tasted, but he instantly regretted drinking it as his stomach sloshed violently.

“Where’s Boone?” he asked, voice a little stronger, looking back and forth between the two of them. “How long was I out?”

“Boone’s in the gym with the rest of the school…and Suri,” Gift said, grimacing. They’re going to interrogate her before they”—he made a cracking noise, then dragged his thumb along his neck—“you know.”

He did know. “Who’s running the interrogation? Thomas?”

“Boone,” Remi said. “We’ll finally get to see his Sin Eater skills in action. Though I don’t think she will be hard to crack. She seems almost eager to tell everyone just how smart she is.”

Payton jerked to his feet, his knees immediately giving out. Remi and Gift grabbed for him, catching him beneath the arms before he could crumple to the floor, helping him sit once more.

“Easy,” Remi said.

Payton frowned, glaring at Remi, something suddenly occurring to him. “Wait, why do you look so much better than me? Didn’t we both get hit with…whatever that was?”

Remi nodded, once more looking sheepish. “You have a concussion. I don’t. You’ve been sleeping off the gas for about thirty minutes. I woke up almost immediately. I’ve had time to clear my head, drink water, and take some medicine for my throbbing headache.”

Oh, right. Payton kept forgetting he had a mild concussion. It always seemed inconsequential…until it wasn’t. But he wasn’t the only injured person who’d been gassed. “How’s Pike?”

Remi and Gift exchanged glances, sorrow etched on their faces. Gift looked back at Payton and shook his head.

“Is he dead?” Payton blurted.

Gift shook his head a second time. “He’s alive. But barely. Between the gunshot and the gas, he didn’t look good when they took him out. He was…gray. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

Remi shrugged. “You never know. Miracles happen.”

Shit. Maybe Payton really hadn’t been taking this whole thing seriously enough. He knew little about Pike—or any teachers other than Boone and Park—but he’d always seemed like a good guy. As good as any former assassin could be. He was a smart guy. Really understood diplomacy. Two teachers were dead—or soon to be. How would the board take that?

Payton took a deep breath and blew it out. “Can you guys take me to the gym, please?”

They exchanged nervous looks, then both said, “Sure.”

The short walk felt like the green mile, like he was walking through quicksand. His lungs hurt, his head throbbed, but the fog was lifting, his head getting clearer by the moment. He was no longer slurring his words, and it didn’t feel like he was about to hurl.

That was something.

The scent of sweat and rubber gym mats hit Payton the moment he entered the large gymnasium. The students were buzzing when they entered, shifting in their seats, laughing, talking, looking far more excited than they had during the assembly a few hours ago. Had that only been a few hours? This whole week had been a rollercoaster ride.

He scanned the room, his eyes landing on Suri first. She was hard to miss, sat in the middle of the room, secured to a wooden chair with silver duct tape. She looked both smug and relaxed, like somehow this was all going to plan. Maybe all assassins came with a built-in innate cockiness. Or maybe she was just so convinced that she was in the right that she would die for it. And she would die. It was only a matter of time.

As if to prove his point, they’d set up a card table just out of Suri’s reach. On it sat a dozen weapons from the arsenal. Most of them were bladed weapons, wicked-looking knives, a small axe, some other items Payton couldn’t make out from that distance. Was this an interrogation or were they planning to torture the information out of her?

He searched, heart tripping, when he saw Boone standing off to the side, back to him as he spoke to Thomas Mulvaney. They looked deeply entrenched in the conversation.

Thomas spotted Payton first, tapping Boone on the shoulder and pointing in his direction. When Boone noticed him, a dozen expressions crossed his face. Relief. Confusion. Irritation. Happiness. He excused himself from the older man, rushing to him.

Boone wrapped his arms around him like they weren’t in a room full of his fellow students. “What are you doing here? You should be resting. That’s why I left you with Gift and Remi.”

He turned to glare at the two, who stood just off to the side, doing their best to look sufficiently sheepish. Payton didn’t care about any of that. He took two handfuls of Boone’s sweater, pulling him closer as he buried his face in his chest, inhaling deeply, biting back the moan as Boone’s spicy scent filled his nose.

He wanted to crawl inside and stay there. He wasn’t sure just when Boone had become his safe space, but every time he inhaled his scent, something unknotted in his chest. Boone was warm and safe, and when he wrapped his arms around him, Payton felt like he had all but disappeared from the world. It was a feeling he could easily grow addicted to.

“I can’t believe you were gonna question her without me,” he sulked. “That definitely violates the boyfriend code.”

Boone chuckled. “The boyfriend code,” he murmured right against his ear.

Payton nodded. “Yeah. Like, I’m pretty sure it falls somewhere between cheating on me and watching an episode of our favorite show behind my back?”

“That’s worse than cheating on you?” Boone asked, rocking them side to side as he clung to him.

Why was that so nice?

“Duh. Cheating could just be about sex,” he muttered into his chest, words muffled. “But watching our favorite show without me…that’s a betrayal that cuts so much deeper.”

Boone snorted. “We don’t even have a favorite show.”

“We will,” Payton assured him. “And when we do, you won’t watch it without me. Right?”

“Of course not,” Boone said, kissing the top of his head.

Something warmed in Payton like he was a child. Boone was the only person in the world who’d ever kissed his head. Payton stayed buried in Boone, wrapped up in his smell until he heard someone behind him. He reluctantly glanced up, brows arching when he saw Mac carrying a tripod in one hand and a camera in the other.

He met Boone’s gaze. “What’s happening?”

“They think it will be beneficial to record the interrogation for future classes. We don’t conduct real interrogations every day. We have to take advantage while we can.”

Boone pulled a face. “Maybe not every day, but more than feels normal for most grad schools.”

When Payton made no move to pull away from him, Boone attempted to disentangle himself from Payton’s limbs. “I’m the interrogator.”

Payton rubbed his face against Boone’s sweater. “Uh-huh.”

Boone’s laugh echoed in the space. “Meaning you have to let me go.”

“No,” Payton sulked.

“I can’t question her with you clinging to me like a limpet.”

Payton met his gaze again, hoping his expression showed just how offended he was, even if he didn’t know just why. “What the fuck is a limpet?”

Boone snorted, shaking his head. “It’s a mollusk that’s superb at clinging to rocks.”

“So, I guess that makes you the rock in this scenario?” Payton asked.

Boone smirked. “Yes, and you the gastropod.”

“Are you trying to piss me off?” Payton muttered. “‘Cause I’ve had a really rough day.”

“Come on, little monster. The faster you let me question her, the sooner we can go to bed.”

Payton groaned at the thought of sleeping wrapped around Boone. “Can I kill her at least?”

“We’ll see how it goes,” Boone said vaguely.

“Well, if not me, at least let Lucy’s pod have her. Suri caused her to lose her eyebrows. It’s the least we can do.”

Boone snorted. “Noted.”

“Can I at least sit in on the interrogation?” Payton huffed.

Boone frowned, looking around at the many people around them. “The whole school is currently ‘sitting in’ on the interrogation, little monster.”

“Seriously, are you pissing me off on purpose?” he repeated.

“I’m honestly not sure,” Boone said, appearing faintly amused. “I’ve just never seen you this…snuggly before.”

Payton ignored the observation. He’d never seen it either, and he had no interest in examining why it was happening now.

“I meant can I sit with you? Like, next to you? Like right beside you during the interrogation?”

Boone tilted his head, studying Payton in a way that had him flushing. “Why?”

“Because, as I said, I’ve had a really rough day, and I just want to be close to you?” he blurted.

Boone’s eyes went comically wide at Payton’s outburst.

“Is that not okay?” Payton pouted, slapping weakly at Boone’s chest. “You’re the one who made me rely on you. Take responsibility.”

What was wrong with him? It had to be the gas. It wasn’t like he didn’t like affection. He did. He snuggled with Gift all the time. But he only liked it in small doses. In carefully-controlled environments. Controlled by him .

This was none of those things.

Somehow, some way, Boone had snuck in and peeled away all of his defensive layers, leaving Payton feeling too exposed. Now, the idea of being away from Boone after the last couple of days just felt like too much. At least, for now.

Boone pulled him close once more, pressing his lips to his ear as he murmured, “You are being so cute right now.” Payton could feel his ears burning. When he didn’t respond, Boone asked, “Is it the gas?”

Payton stepped back and scowled up at him, enunciating each word as he said, “I will kill you.”

Boone grinned, then kissed his nose. “Okay, okay. No more teasing. You can sit in. It’s the least I can do after she held you hostage.”

“She held me hostage, too,” Remi said quietly.

They both turned to look at him. Boone’s brows went up, but then he slowly nodded. “Do you want to sit in as well?”

Remi nodded. “Yeah, I want to hear what she has to say for herself.”

Boone looked to Mac, who dragged three chairs into a semi-circle position around Suri, who smirked, then rolled her eyes like she couldn’t believe how much effort they were putting into this little lesson.

Boone signaled to Archer that they were ready to start, and Archer stuck two fingers into his mouth, a sharp whistle echoing through the whole gymnasium. It was like an ice pick directly through his eyeball, straight into his cerebellum. He should have taken Remi up on the medication offer before they came.

“Everyone listen up,” Archer said, voice loud in the now deafening silence. “Once we start, anyone who speaks will be removed and put back on room restriction. Understand?”

Everyone grumbled but nodded.

Payton walked to his chair and spun it around, straddling it so he could fold his arms over the top and rest his chin there. Boone stood, holding onto the back of his own chair as he studied Suri. That left Remi with the seat next to the table of pointy objects. The smaller boy kept side-eyeing it like it might come to life and attack him. Remi was an enigma in every way.

Suri smirked up at Boone. “Is it bring-your-children-to-work day?”

Boone said nothing, staring down at Suri for a solid minute until she finally broke their staring contest.

When Boone continued to say nothing, she tsked. “For God’s sake, sit down. You’re so tall I’m going to get a crick in my neck.”

“That should be the least of your worries,” Payton muttered.

“I don’t have any worries. Not anymore. Now, the worries are all yours.”

All his? He didn’t know if she meant “yours” as in him personally, or yours in the broader sense, like the school. It didn’t really matter.

Boone finally took the center seat, bending forward, resting his forearms on his thighs as he studied her. Once more, he let the silence stretch between them. A solid five minutes had passed, the only sound being exasperated sighs from the students who were undoubtedly growing restless.

It was uncomfortable.

For everyone.

Finally, Suri rolled her eyes. “I know what you’re trying to do. I know all about your interrogation tactics. Do you think silence will get me to break?”

Hadn’t it done just that?

Boone ignored her outburst. “When did you first betray your country?”

She snorted but said nothing, eyes flashing with raw hostility.

“You went missing ten years ago. You were tracking a terrorist in Yemen when you were captured, right?”

Suri just blinked at him for a long moment, a slow smile creeping across her face. “Is that what my file says?”

Boone arched a brow. “Mm. According to your file, you followed a bomb courier into a warehouse and got caught in a drone strike. They believed you had perished with the others and that there were no survivors. Yet, six months later, you resurfaced, seemingly fine.”

“Seemingly fine?” Suri parroted. “Is that what you call third-degree burns on thirty percent of my body?”

Boone shrugged. “It’s the nature of the beast, no? The price of freedom is often paid in flesh and blood.”

Boone was deliberately antagonizing her. He’d heard the truth over Payton’s phone call; some of it, anyway. But Suri didn’t know that. She didn’t know they’d been listening the whole time.

She knew Boone was baiting her. It was working, too. Payton could see her struggling, fighting the urge to rage against the injustice of what happened to her. She was seething, chest heaving, as she stared Boone down like they were the only two people in the room.

Boone shrugged. “You don’t have to talk. We’ve already figured most of it out just based on the records Thomas secured from Elite. You’re not the first agent they’ve seduced into flipping on their country. You certainly won’t be the last.”

“You know this isn’t about money?” she snapped, looking up at the students. “Don’t let them lie to you. Do you know why they wanted psychopaths for this job? So you don’t care about the innocent lives lost because of American greed. They want you hungry and obedient. They want you to question nothing.”

Boone blinked at her, just calmly waiting.

“And I didn’t. I didn’t question a thing. I did exactly as they said. Until that day. The bomb courier…the one they told me to follow back to his warehouse… Do you know what he was hiding in that warehouse?”

Boone just shrugged, then shook his head.

“Vaccines. Medicine. Women. Children. It wasn’t a warehouse, it was a makeshift hospital. And he wasn’t a bomb courier, he was a fucking humanitarian aid worker, and I led them right to him…to them . At first, I thought they’d made a mistake. I radioed them to pull back. That there was no threat. They dropped it anyway with me still inside the building.”

“You were gone for six months. Were you with the humanitarian workers the whole time?”

Suri’s gaze floated away from his. “I was recovering in the burn unit at the university’s hospital. I lied and told them I didn’t remember my name or anything else about myself. They just assumed my traumatic brain injury had caused retrograde amnesia in addition to my vertigo.”

“You have vertigo?” Payton whispered.

“Yes, beta ,” she taunted. “You know what they advise for that?”

“Scopolamine,” Payton said, expression grim.

“It’s what gave me the idea for the patches. Scopolamine alone works so well in large doses, but it incapacitates for far too long. A little tweak was all it took. You still look quite under the weather, though.” She looked at Remi. “You both do.”

When she continued to stare at the other boy, he reached behind his ear, searching for a patch, shoulders sagging when he came away empty-handed. Suri just smirked.

“Did you leave once you’d recovered? Did you call Kendrick?”

She sighed. “Not right away, no. I went to stay with…a friend.”

“The friend who’d rescued you from a burning building?” Boone countered.

“Yes. There was still work to be done. I helped them rebuild the hospital. It was the very least I could do.”

“So, you violated protocol, stayed hidden. Turned your back on your country?”

She made a sound almost like a hiss. “I did the right thing. I chose my humanity. Do you think this was the first time our government had lied about our target? It ate at me. I spent days wondering how many innocent fucking people I killed just to further their agenda.”

“That was our job,” Boone said, leaning back and crossing his ankle over his knee.

Her lip curled in disgust. “Our job sucks. Our government sucks,” she spit. “We think we know the truth… We act like we know all the secrets, but we know nothing. They gaslight all of us into thinking America is the greatest country in the world.”

“Every country does that.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t even grow up here, and I still fell for the propaganda. It’s all a show. We see what they want us to see. We believe what they tell us to believe. But now that the scales have fallen from my eyes, I can’t go back to pretending that what I do serves a greater good.”

Boone gave her a tight smile. “I admire your convictions. But how does that gel with you and Kendrick selling classified information to foreign governments…for money? Doesn’t sound very altruistic of you.”

“Kendrick blackmailed me.”

“With what?” Boone asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

She glanced up and away, staring at the clock on the gym wall. “He knew everything. He even knew I was in the hospital that whole time. He left me there. He watched and waited. He had me surveilled. He wanted to know if I was lost for good. When I came back, he had enough intel to sink me. He said he’d order another strike on our hospital.”

Our hospital.

“He blackmailed you into helping him?”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“Tell me why you wanted access to the servers?”

“All the proof Kendrick gathered on me was on there. I just wanted it erased.”

“The servers are impossible to access. There was nowhere safer than those servers. So, why all the trouble? Nobody even knew they existed.”

Suri shook her head vehemently. “You’re wrong. We had intel that the servers were being moved. That, within the next six months, a team would retrieve them and bring them back to the server farm in Virginia. Someone was onto Kendrick.”

Payton frowned. “Who told you that?”

“My sources,” she said vaguely.

“Say I believe you. Say you’re the victim. Why Remi? Why Navy?” Boone asked.

She glanced in Remi’s direction. “Well, he should be obvious. He’s classed as one of the top five hackers in the world. He has his own underground fanbase. The government only lets him do what he does because he’s on your team. And he was right here, on our campus. Who would pass that up? Especially when my guy was having no luck from the outside.”

“Why Navy?” Remi asked softly.

Suri gave a humorless laugh.“Pure circumstance. She was the only one who had something I could use against her. Something nobody detected during her background check.”

Boone frowned. “Something to do with her mother?”

“So, you did find the recordings.” She looked at Payton, a wry smile spreading across her face. “You knew it was me before you saw me in the library footage. How?”

“ Ai Hai ,” Payton said.

Suri’s brows furrowed. “What?”

“‘ Ai Hai , Navy. Look at you…’” Payton explained. “It was the same thing you said to Remi when you saw how exhausted he was. ‘ Ai Hai , Remi. Look at you.’ It’s hardly a common expression.”

She barked out a laugh. “Very good. I’m impressed. Maybe you should come work for us.”

“Us?” Payton asked.

“Uh-uh-uh,” she chided. “I’m afraid that information stays with me.”

“You’re saying the people you work for aren’t the people who saved you?” Payton asked, wondering when Boone would stop him.

She scoffed. “Do you think a bunch of aid workers have the connections needed to make this operation happen?”

“I’m gonna be honest,” Payton said, “I have no idea. You say our government is corrupt—and I agree—but you’re working for a foreign government who is statistically equally corrupt. You say your motives are altruistic, but you helped Kendrick sell secrets that could endanger innocent people. You humiliated Remi, blackmailed and murdered Navy, tried to kill both me and Remi… How are you any better than someone drone-striking hospitals?”

The smile dropped from Suri’s face. “I’m doing what I have to.”

“For the greater good?” Payton mocked. “You become the thing you hate. Isn’t that what they say? You left one devil to fight for another. You’ll get no sympathy from me.”

“You forget I know your secrets, too,” Suri taunted with a smile, looking back and forth between Remi and Payton. “I know what was real and what was fake in those emails. Shall I tell them? Should I tell your classmates, your teachers, just who you and Remi really are?” She looked at Remi. “Do you think your friends would still like you if they knew the truth? We both know I could have put so many worse things on that video. The two of you are already so close to being kicked out for good.”

“Shut up,” Remi muttered.

She locked eyes with Payton. “It won’t end with me. Now that they have their sights on your sweet little Remi, they’ll keep coming for him until they get him. Even if they have to spill all his secrets. Whatever it takes.”

“Let them come,” Payton said. “We’ll protect him. We’ll always protect him.”

Remi made a sound like a wounded animal and snatched a large knife off the table. Everyone watched, paralyzed, as Remi stepped in front of Suri and drove the blade up under her chin, piercing her tongue but not killing her.

Remi immediately stumbled back as Suri began to gag and sputter, blood pouring from the severed artery of her tongue. She was choking on her own blood, eyes wide as her throat convulsed. The wound would kill her…eventually.

Payton turned to Remi, who was now a shocking shade of green, his pupils blown, hands shaking as he stared down in horror at what he’d done. Payton pushed Remi back to where Suri struggled, forcing his hand around the knife handle, then covering it with his own.

Together, they pulled the knife free, blood warm and sticky spurting across both their faces. Payton forced Remi’s knife blade to her neck. “It’s okay,” he told Remi. “Just…put her out of her misery.”

“How…?”

“Like this.”

He dragged the edge across her carotid, the blade cutting through it like a hot knife through butter. Blood started spraying like something out of a horror movie, a collective gasp coming from the bleachers.

He let Remi drop the knife. The boy immediately turned like he planned to run, but face-planted directly into Drake’s chest, bouncing back a foot, then staring up at him with a blank expression on his face. Drake reached out to grab his shoulders just in time for Remi to puke all over him and collapse.

Poor kid was having a very rough day.

But not as bad as Suri.

Drake picked him up like he weighed nothing, then disappeared with him.

“Are you okay?” Boone asked.

Payton huffed out a breath, looking down at his soiled clothes, then back to Boone. “Is it over yet?”

“Yeah, it’s over. Let's go home.”

“Is home your room?” Payton asked.

Boone cupped his face, forcing his gaze up to his. “I hope so. If you want it to be.”

Payton nodded. “Do I need to say the words?”

“What words?” Boone asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Do I need to say I love you?”

Boone’s hands tightened on his cheeks. “That depends. Do you? Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

“I don’t know what love is, so I don’t know how I know if I mean it,” Payton countered, feeling defeated. “I know you are the only person in this world that matters to me besides Gift. I know I feel possessive of you. I feel protective of you. If anyone hurt you, I’d tear the world apart to get vengeance for you. I know that all I want to do lately—all I ever want to do—is just feel you touching me in some way. Nothing feels okay when you’re not touching me. Is that love?”

Boone looked shell-shocked. He stood there silent for so long that Payton started to squirm. Finally, he swallowed, blinking rapidly. “Fuck, little monster. I think it is. I hope it is because I feel the same way about you.”

“Oh,” Payton said, nodding. “That’s good. That’s really good. Now what?”

“Now what, what?” Boone asked.

Payton pressed his face into his chest once more. It was his favorite place to be now. His words were muffled as he asked, “What do we do after I love you?”

“Well, the first thing we do is shower because you look like you just severed someone’s artery. After that, we can plan the rest of our lives.”

“Can we start with dinner and figuring out our favorite show?”

“Whatever you want, little monster. Whatever you want.”

Payton wanted so many things.

But they could take them day by day.

Payton smiled into Boone’s chest. They had time.