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Chapter Text

This is bad. This is so bad. This is worse than any con Breanna’s ever been on has gone wrong before, even including the museum stuff.

They’re about an hour and a half away from any kind of help—and right now, “they” is just her and Harry. Their button cams are gone, and while Breanna’s pretty sure Harry’s still got his earpiece, hers is lost and it’s not like those are particularly useful right now anyway. They’re outnumbered ten to two, which would be fine odds if Eliot was with them but is really bad without him. Oh, yeah, and there’s a gun pointed at both of their heads.

Just fucking great.

“I do not appreciate people snooping around in my business,” their bad guy says. He’s about a head shorter than all the other dudes he’s got with him but no less jacked, his thick Louisiana accent standing out with all their German. “Especially not some lawyer and his paralegal.”

“We didn’t see anything,” Harry says, keeping his voice calm. For once, Breanna’s happy to let him speak for them both. This guy, Barry Wright, still thinks they’re working for Robert Jameson’s legal team. Running a con with two marks you have to pit against each other is always complicated. They just hadn’t really expected to experience firsthand why all of Jameson’s lawyers have been disappearing. “And we’d be very happy to go back to our boss and tell him that.”

“Now, I just don’t think that’s true,” Wright says. “And I think we’ve got to make sure neither of you ever get the chance to prove me right.”

Stall. They’ve gotta stall. Eliot will be on his way, but even if he breaks the speed limit like Breanna knows he will, that's still a long ass time.

“Don’t you want to know what Mr. Jameson knows?” Breanna asks.

Wright shrugs lazily. “I don’t really give a damn,” he says. “Whatever he knows, he’s not going to know it for long. Would one of you please kick her?”

“Kick m—” All the air pushes out of Breanna’s lungs as someone kicks her hard in the small of her back, the subsequent hard fall on her stomach knocking the wind out of her. Her chin hits the ground equally hard and she feels her lip split as blood pools on her tongue. Another harsh kick to the ribs sends her sprawling, and all of Eliot’s advice about how to take punches leaves her mind as her instincts tell her to get the fuck out of here now.

“Bre!” Harry calls, genuine fear in his voice, and Breanna can’t even be mad at him for using her real name because she’s too busy trying to suck air back into herself.

“I knew you two were con men,” Wright says gleefully. Breanna manages to look up and sees Harry straining to get to her, eyes wide. “Maybe if you’d just been honest with me, I could have cut you in on the deal, and it wouldn’t have come to this.”

Breanna keeps gulping oxygen. She tries to send Harry a frantic mental message to switch up the con so they can get out of here, and maybe she’s got latent telepathic abilities because he looks at Wright with an ugly sneer. “Damn it,” he growls, trying for the same voice he used when they tried running the con that went wrong on Blanche. “You don’t have to hurt her, she’s not even in on it.”

Wright crouches in front of Harry. Like Breanna was, he’s on his knees, although now he straightens and adopts an annoyed air. “Oh really?” Wright says. “And what exactly is she ‘not in’ on?”

“Robbing Jameson,” Harry says. “Far as she knows, I’m legit. At least until a few seconds ago.”

“You’re not a lawyer?” Breanna wheezes, following the lie as well as she can.

“I dabble,” Harry says. He shrugs. “You think I care about anything you’re up to, Mr. Wright? I’m here because someone said Jameson was a few bad days away from emptying his bank account into whatever lawyer got him out of the hole he dug himself, and she’s here to make my con more legit. Do you honestly think—”

Wright doesn’t order one of his thugs to punch Harry, he just does it himself, driving his fist into his gut. Harry doubles over with a groan, and Wright takes the opportunity to grab him by his short hair and pull his head up.

“I don’t think I need you to tell me what to think,” he says. “And you can say all you want that she’s not in on the little scheme you’re running here. I don’t believe you. If you didn’t care about her, you would’ve kept your mouth shut and let me take care of her.”

“I’m telling you, she’s a real paralegal,” Harry tries, gritting his teeth. Breanna’s able to sit up a little more at least, wishing she could rub where she was kicked to ease the throb. The guy must have metal in the soles of his shoes or something. The slap Wright delivers to Harry’s face with his free hand is audible.

“Now, here’s what I think happened,” he says, measured. “I think the two of you run a bit of an extortion racket. I think you hear about Jameson’s money troubles and how he hasn’t recouped a damn thing after that woman who sued him for her poor little sister’s accident. I think the two of you decide he sounds like the perfect mark, and I think you decide that to make yourselves look good to him you come looking through my work. Maybe you want the money for your elopement, maybe you’ve got a sick puppy somewhere, I don’t care. Do you know why I don’t care?”

He lets go of Harry’s head and looks at Breanna, motioning for her to answer him. She swallows. “Because it doesn’t matter if we work for Jameson or not. It just matters what we think we may have seen. Which we didn’t. See anything, I mean.”

“There you go,” he says approvingly. “Smart girl you’ve got here. It doesn’t matter who you’re snitching to, it just matters that you’re snitches.”

“We’re not—” Harry gets punched in the stomach again, and while he’s able to roll with it a little more this time it still hurts.

“I think we’re gonna have to teach you a bigger lesson here. Kill two birds with one stone,” Wright says, and sudden fear shoots through Breanna’s chest. “Now, Mr… What was your name, again?”

Harry keeps his face turned toward Breanna, but his eyes flicker over to Wright. “Landry.”

“Mr. Landry,” Wright says, “if you expect me to believe this girl isn’t in on it with you, why don’t you tell me who I should have any one of these fine men punish first?”

Suddenly Breanna can’t breathe. They’re fucked. They’re so fucked. Astronomically fucked. It’s going to be forever until Eliot gets here. She knows Sophie’s rule is that if she’s in physical danger, she should blow the con and try to get the hell out of there, but there’s not exactly a good way to run. As soon as Harry gives his answer, one of them is getting hurt, and the con is completely up in smoke from Wright’s end.

Harry says what she knew he was going to say. “Me.”

“That’s what I thought.” Wright claps him on the back. “Would someone dislocate Mr. Landry’s shoulder?”

It’s done with clinical efficiency, and despite Harry’s best efforts to brace himself he still cries out in pain. The handcuffs holding his hands behind his back just like Breanna’s make the angle even more awkward, and Breanna’s own intact shoulder screams with sympathy. She—she needs to get their attention away from him somehow. Onto her. But she can’t make her mouth open.

The gun that had just been pointed at her is now pressed against the back of her neck, she realizes distantly. A threat she could pretend was abstract made far more real.

“Very good,” Wright says. “Keep going.”

It’s not really a word that comes out of Breanna’s mouth after the sixth or seventh blow she sees Harry take. More of a creaking sound at a frequency she doesn’t think most humans could hear.

Wright holds up his hand, and the man steps back. There’s some blood on the ground from Harry’s mouth, maybe. He must have cut his lip like she did. Wright crouches again. What grown man—’cause he’s basically Harry and Sophie’s age—crouches as much as he does except for Eliot? Breanna’s not sure if she’s only thinking about that because she’s anxious—or—no. She is, she is for sure. She…

“How do you feel, Mr. Landry?” He asks, prodding Harry’s newly dislocated shoulder. Harry cracks an eyelid to look at him, then jerks back like there’s something on Wright’s face Breanna can’t see. She can sure as hell see Wright’s smile, though. She watches him take Harry’s hair again. He keeps a hold of it as he stands. “That’s what I expected. I’ll ask you again. You or her?”

Breanna tries to speak again and only succeeds in making the same noise as before. Harry’s eyes dart to her. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly, which is about as much range of motion as the grip on his short (thinning, she wants to say to distract him) hair allows.

“Don’t,” he says quietly.

“So you’re saying it should be her?” Wright says, a touch too gleeful.

“No!” He says quickly. He stops looking at Breanna. Shifts nervously. Licks his lips. It’s all disjointed and strange, like she’s watching a movie with frames missing. Breanna wonders if she’s maybe going into some kind of shock. “Me.”

Breanna watches as Wright takes a gun from one of his men. It all feels so far away. She didn’t think she was going to die like this. Not even when their other cons have gone wrong and she thought she was going to get seriously hurt or worse. Those times it hadn’t been in some dark warehouse somewhere totally off the grid. She can’t—

But Wright doesn’t press the gun between Harry’s eyes and pull the trigger. He just holds it thoughtfully, keeping it almost casually aimed in the general direction of Harry’s torso. His other hand levers Harry’s jaw open, thumb working its way past his lips and pressing up behind his upper teeth. 

“If you try anything, I will shoot you,” he says, measured. “And then I will shoot her. Do you understand?”

He uses his grip on Harry’s jaw to make him nod before he lets go. Breanna doesn’t understand what he’s talking about until he unzips his pants.

Move? Breanna should move. She should break out of these handcuffs and run over and get her friend and steal a gun and make them let them go—but all of Parker’s lessons about how to slip out of bindings, the ones she’s been getting since she first met Parker years ago, are completely gone from her mind. The only thing she can think is that this can’t be happening. It can’t be.

Harry’s eyes dart to hers one last time, and Breanna reads the warning in them from ten feet away. Don’t look.

She immediately turns her head, only for one of the two guys that have been practically on top of her since they chucked the two of them out of the van to grab her hair the way Wright had Harry’s and drag it back again to make her watch.

Breanna needs to close her eyes. She can’t look at this, she can’t. But there’s a second where her body won’t listen to her and she sees what she’s never going to forget for the rest of her life.

The darkness of her closed eyelids is comforting. She can still hear. She can match the sounds to what she just saw. Harry’s eyes were closed, too. Are closed. His mouth open and gagging and his head struggling to yank away and his throat tense. She doesn’t… She can’t…

None of Hardison’s stories about the cons he and the crew got up to ever included anything like this. Breanna’s not a child and she’s not naive. They’ve taken down creeps as Leverage International before. Human trafficking rings, shady producers, businessmen with stacks of women metaphorically buried beneath them, people like that. None of them had known Wright was going to be one of them. She doesn’t think she would’ve been allowed anywhere near this con if they had.

She’s not a child. She’s not naive. But she almost wishes they would’ve known, because they would have treated her like she was—like she is—and kept her from this.

Harry cries out in pain and her eyes briefly open, unable to stop the sudden fear that maybe Wright has started stabbing him or strangling him or something quieter than a gunshot. Only it’s worse, almost, both than that and than before, because Harry’s face and chest are pressed into the concrete floor of the warehouse and Wright is behind him with the gun aimed between his shoulder blades to keep him down and Harry’s suit pants are around what little Breanna can see of his thighs—

She closes her eyes again and tries humming to herself to drown out Harry’s hitching breaths and strangled whimpers. It’s a trick she learned on the bad nights with her gran, when she’d wander around the house at night and have no idea where she was, frantically tearing up the place to try to find children that hadn’t lived there in decades. Her calling out would keep Breanna awake for hours, and even though the humming didn’t make her fall asleep any faster at least it made Gran harder to hear.

She can still hear it under the humming. There’s a pattern to the way Harry is—sobbing, crying out, gasping. A pattern to how Wright grunts, then inhales loud enough to echo. Breanna should be shouting to distract him but she’s not. She should be telling him to get away from Harry. She shouldn’t be frozen here. If Eliot was with them…

Except Breanna’s not like Eliot. She’s like Alec. She’s supposed to be able to think her way around the problem. She doesn’t know if there’s any way they can think themselves out of this.

Maybe it only lasts for thirty seconds. Maybe five minutes, twenty minutes, five hours, three days, a week. Maybe Breanna spends a whole year with her eyes squeezed tightly shut and the sounds of pain Harry’s trying his best to suppress burrowing into her ears past the humming.

“See?” Wright says, and Breanna hears Harry make another broken sound. She doesn’t open her eyes this time. “This is what happens when you meddle in my business. You shoulda stuck to whatever you were trying to run on Jameson and left me out of it. Now neither of you are walking out of here alive.”

He laughs a little, like this is all fucking funny to him. 

“Come on, Mr. Landry,” he says with a huff that sounds concerningly like a cardiac arrest. This time Harry’s noise is more of a wail. “If you weren’t going to end up at the bottom of a bayou after this, I’d tell you to keep the change. Unlike Jameson, I pay my whores.”

Breanna burns with rage all the way down to her fingertips. She wants to start screaming at him. There’s vomit in her mouth. She keeps humming because she’ll puke more if she stops.

There’s another noise. A hiccup. The same sound Breanna thinks she might have made when she got kicked. She doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t want to know.

“I’m—okay,” Harry says in a thready tone. His voice breaks on the second word. His next attempt at speech is stronger but still thick and wet. “It’s okay, Breanna.”

“Sure it’s okay,” Wright says, and Breanna’s not sure if she’s missing time or if her humming and her heartbeat are too loud for her to hear his footsteps on the floor before he cups her chin in his hands. His fingers are damp. She doesn’t want to know with what. “Chin up, girly. It’s not like you’re next. I’m not that young. Open up those eyes for me.”

If it’s a matter of life and death, you do what keeps you alive. She keeps that shared advice from Parker and Eliot in her mind as she opens her eyes.

She tries not to look at Harry but doesn’t quite manage it. He’s crumpled on the floor, having curled on his side facing her. His knees are drawn up like he’s trying to protect himself, pants still yanked down. There’s some blood on the floor Breanna can’t see the origin of. His eyes are screwed up and he’s crying. Something wet is smeared around the corner of his mouth and mixing with the blood. Maybe spit, maybe not.

Breanna looks up at Wright’s face and thinks about what she wouldn’t do to punch his teeth in. When they get out of this, he’s dead. He’s so fucking dead.

Eliot’s got rules about killing. Alec and Parker have told her not to ask about why. She never thought she needed to know. It was easy to think killing people was wrong. Sure, she’s seen bad people. There have even been people she wanted dead. Blake Whitcomb and Hank Hogan in an abstract sense. Dr. Gray in a more tangible one. And yeah, there have been people she’s looked at on the internet and wanted to ruin so thoroughly they felt like there was only one thing they could do in response. That guy with the CSEM ring she’d stumbled on when she was nineteen who’d been advertising right there on Twitter for anyone to see. The woman who bragged about the conversion therapy camp she sent her daughter to. The dude on Reddit who bragged about all the animals he—yeah, there’s been people.

This is… different. The anger almost scares her. It’s cold and sharp and dangerous and certain. She’s going to kill this guy. Then maybe everyone here. Eliot’s got rules about killing because he knows how easy it would be to never stop after the first time. He must. He didn’t stop for a long time.

Breanna’s mouth is so dry it takes her a second to gather enough saliva in her mouth to spit directly in Wright’s face.

The slap she gets is totally worth it just to see the expression he makes, and she glares at the gun he points at her forehead.

“I think we’re done here,” Wright sneers. “And just for that, I’m shooting you first. You a betting man, Mr. Landry? How long do you think it’ll take your pretty little fake paralegal to start begging me to kill her when I start shooting off her—”

Three bangs.

Bang one: the sound of Eliot kicking in the door.

Bang two: Wright turning around and accidentally discharging into the warehouse wall.

Bang three: one of Wright’s men automatically firing at Harry.

Breanna… Doesn’t really see what happens next. It’s all a blur. There’s gunshots, there’s people shouting, there’s a lot going on, and Breanna keeps her eyes locked on Harry’s blood on the floor because it’s the only thing she feels capable of doing.

She almost screams when someone wraps their arms around her—okay, she definitely screams, and then Parker is shushing her and the cuffs are gone.

“Harry,” Breanna says, voice stumbling.

“Eliot’s got Harry,” Parker says. She scoops Breanna up. “I’ve got you. We’re getting out of here. Sophie’s out there with the truck, but I’m gonna drive.”

“What about…” Breanna trails off as she gets a good look around. “Oh.”

Every last one of Wright’s hired German muscle is laid out on the floor. Wright himself is the centerpiece, bleeding rather severely from the head and with one arm twisted so harshly it’s probably snapped in two. He doesn’t… She can’t totally tell if he’s breathing or not.

“Get Bre to the car,” Eliot says, his voice a million miles away. Breanna cranes her neck and sees him kneeling next to Harry, trying to tie his coat around his waist. Harry’s cuffs have been picked open too, with his dislocated arm laying limp and bloody and his other hand covering his mouth.

That’s the last thing Breanna sees before Parker carries her out of the warehouse and she breaks down in tears.

Chapter Text

“Here,” Parker says, and Breanna barely has time to register that she’s being put down before one of Parker’s phones is being put in her hand and her brother’s voice is in her ear.

“Bre? What’s going on? You good?”

“Alec,” Breanna says numbly. She feels like she’s only capable of speaking in one or two-word sentences. “I’m okay.”

“You’re bleeding,” Parker says, dabbing a paper towel against Breanna’s lower lip. Breanna can’t see Sophie over her shoulder. Did she go inside to help Eliot get Harry? Then again, she could be there. Breanna’s eyes aren’t properly focusing.

“Harry,” she croaks again. “I saw… I heard someone shoot… Is he okay?”

“Looked like a graze,” Parker says. She squeezes Breanna’s shoulders. Breanna doesn’t know if she’s ever seen her this frantic. “Hardison, you’ve—you’ve gotta talk to her, okay? I think she’s in shock and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Knew I shouldn’ta left,” Alec says. “I’m getting the first plane back tomorrow. Eui-sung’s gonna have to handle this one on his own.”

“Okay,” Breanna says. She knows she should tell him to put the con before her. Whatever he’s doing with the Korean crew is important. But she wants Alec. (What she wants is Nana and to go home, but she’ll settle for just her favorite brother.) “I think I’m going to throw up.”

Parker swiftly gives her a paper bag and Breanna retches into it as nausea rolls over her. The bile that was in her mouth drips out, but nothing new actually comes up. Her chest squeezes like she’s actually vomiting. The back of the truck opens, but she can’t bring herself to look. She can hear Sophie’s voice, though. Terribly calm and measured.

Alec’s saying something to her? She can’t tell what. She doesn’t know if she can breathe.

“It’s just a graze,” Parker reaffirms after leaning out of Breanna’s sight for a moment. “It’s barely even bleeding anymore. You’re okay, Breanna. Okay? You’re okay?”

“I’m okay,” Breanna echoes. Her hands are shaking. “I need to ruin that guy’s life,” she realizes. “I need my phone. Do you have my real one? They broke the burner I was using.”

“His life’s plenty ruined,” Eliot says evenly. Breanna can hear the rustling of fabric. Why isn’t Harry saying anything, if the gunshot really was just a graze? But Parker wouldn’t lie to her about something like that. “You focus on yourself, kid. Just breathe a little slower, you’re hyperventilating.”

Oh, is she? Breanna tries to slow down. Parker’s still squeezing her shoulders. The truck is moving, which means Parker’s not driving.

She wants to ask if they even know what happened, but that’s—Eliot and Parker went in there. They saw Harry. Of course they know. They’re the best of the best, but they wouldn’t need to be. Anyone would know. That part makes her want to tear a hole in Wright’s face. Nobody should have ever gotten to see her friend like that.

“Just breathe,” Eliot repeats. “You’re alright, Bre. We got you outta there. We got both of you outta there. You and Harry are good. You’re gonna be fine.”

Breanna closes her eyes and tilts her head back until it hits the wall of the truck. She wants to start humming again. She wants to drown the whole damn world out.

Before she wondered if she was losing time or if she just couldn’t hear Wright. It must be the former, because the next time Breanna opens her eyes she’s on the couch behind the stage with a blanket thoroughly cocooning her.

Alec is still rambling in her ear, but the only person she can see is Parker, who’s methodically beating a nearly destroyed stress doll against the wall. Breanna groans a little and she immediately stops, spinning around as an entire container of chocolate pudding appears in her hands.

“Here,” Parker says, pushing it on Breanna. “Eliot said to eat this.”

“Bre? You up?” Alec asks.

“I guess,” she says quietly, taking the pudding and the spoon Parker offers next. “I—when did we get back?”

“About twenty minutes ago,” Parker answers. She starts bouncing in place. “I got you out of the car. Sophie helped. Are you okay?”

“I wasn’t the one that got hurt,” Breanna mumbles, tasting blood from her lip mixing with the pudding.

“Yeah, uh, no one’s tellin’ me what happened,” Alec says. “Parker, is that true? You said she was bleedin’.”

“You’re not on speaker,” Breanna says. She robotically eats some more of the pudding. “I’m not lying. My wrists hurt ‘cause they cuffed me and my face hurts ‘cause they split my lip and that’s it. Harry—”

There’s the nausea again, and Parker sticks out a bowl this time. Breanna manages to keep the pudding down by the grace of God.

“He alive?” Alec says slowly. Both a question and a statement.

“Yeah,” Breanna says. “He’s alive. They were… Wright was going to kill us, but Eliot got there in time.” She has another bite of pudding. “Alec?”

She hears her brother close his laptop. All attention on her. That’s rare. Usually only Nana can manage to get that from him. “Yeah?”

“Can you keep talking about whatever you were talking about before?” She asks.

“‘Course I can,” he scoffs, trying to hide the genuine concern in his voice. “You just sit there and eat your pudding.”

Breanna closes her eyes and does exactly that, trying to lose herself in her brother’s voice.

It doesn’t work, but it’s a good distraction for an hour or so.

“Parker?” Breanna finally says, putting her container of pudding aside. It’s been completely empty for about forty minutes. “I know we try to—I mean, we—” Parker tilts her head and waits until Breanna can get her verbal feet under her. “I know when stuff goes wrong, we debrief. Figure out how we can improve next time.” She fidgets some more. “Do I have to talk about it?”

Parker looks away. Not in the usual ‘Parker avoidance of eye contact’ way. She presses her lips together until they’re a thin white line.

“No,” she says finally. “We know what happened. Harry’s earpiece was on.”

Breanna feels like she just got punched in the stomach again. “Oh.”

Parker starts pacing. “I took Sophie’s away.”

Breanna’s vision bobs like she’s nodding even though she doesn’t feel herself move. “Okay.”

“Not fast enough,” she adds. “We were on the way when it started. I didn’t know—I was telling Hardison you got taken and that we were getting you and Harry was lying pretty well, and it seemed like you both knew to stall and then I thought he was strangling him and Eliot knew and tried to take mine out and then I realized and grabbed Sophie’s and—” Her hands briefly blur as she flaps them by the sides of her head.

Breanna’s stomach rolls. “‘Kay.”

“Hey, hey, I still don’t know all of it,” Alec says. “You wanna pass the phone off to Parker, have her fill me in?”

“I don’t want you to know,” Breanna’s voice quavers. She hates this. She hates that her stupid body’s not listening to her, that she sounds so goddamn small.

“Uh huh.” Her brother sighs. “Okay. Okay, Bre. I don’t gotta know. Is Eliot gonna kill the guy who hurt my li’l sister?”

“I wanted to ruin his life. Eliot said I couldn’t,” Breanna says. She wishes she could make it sound less monotone. She wishes she could complain better. She wishes this had never fucking happened.

“Excuse me?” It’s not often she hears Alec angry. He’s loud enough Parker can hear him even though the phone’s still not on speaker.

“That’s because he’s already dead,” Parker says. She looks Breanna dead in the face. Only for a second before her eyes flicker away again, but that’s long enough. “The cops’ll say one of his German friends turned on him and bashed him in the back of the head with one of their guns or a piece of rebar after they broke his arm.”

Breanna stares at her, eyes wide. “Did Eliot…”

“No,” Parker says simply, and Breanna knows exactly what that means.

Another moment lost. One second she’s on the couch, the next she’s throwing her arms around Parker and crying into her shoulder. The phone is still clutched in her hand. She must’ve finally accidentally hit the speaker button, because Alec’s voice is saying “Thank you, baby,” and Breanna can feel Parker shaking and she doesn’t know if it’s with anger or if she’s just too frazzled to want to be touched and Breanna is pushing it or a trillion other things.

They hug for a long time. Until Parker sits them both back down on the couch, her legs bouncing like she wants to climb the walls or run away.

“Can I ask you something?” Breanna asks hoarsely, and waits for Parker to nod. She looks at the phone. “Does—does that happen on cons? Has that happened before?”

“Sometimes people get hurt, Bre,” Alec says.

“No,” Parker says. She twitches. “Yes. I don’t know. Not with us. Not with our team.” Her knee keeps bouncing. “Hardison. Alec? Do you remember the job in Slovakia, with the Hungarian team? The one we had to put Mikel on as an emergency fill-in?”

“Yeah,” Alec says, voice heavy. “Yeah, I do. Parker. Baby. I really need you to…”

“Not Bre,” Parker says. She presses her thumb against her lips, fingers curled under her chin. She doesn’t seem like she’s able to look anywhere near Breanna anymore. “Promise. Not Bre. It was Harry.”

“Glad the guy didn’t get to walk away,” Alec says approvingly as Breanna’s stomach does a little swoop. “And I’m on my way to the airport now, by the way. I’ll be in town in about 15 hours—Roy knows a guy who’s hooking me up with a private jet.”

“What did you do that time?” Breanna asks. She hugs her knees to her chest.

“We didn’t do anything,” Parker says. “We didn’t have to. That’s why we sent Mikel.” She shakes her head. “You’re both off the con. Too risky. We’re sinking Jameson and running.”

“You can’t take me off of this,” Breanna starts to argue, even though everything in her is practically sobbing with relief at the idea of being away from all this. She doesn’t even want to be at HQ right now.

Parker doesn’t look at all convinced by her act. “You’re both off,” she repeats. “Clear?”

“Clear,” Breanna says, relief audible.

“You look like you’re doing a little better,” Sophie says, and Breanna looks up to see her in the doorway. Her face is pale. Breanna shrugs. “Hardison, are you on your way?”

“Got a private jet chartered and everything,” Alec agrees. “And you’d better believe we’re gonna have a long talk about how Bre and Harry got nabbed and taken to a secondary location.”

“It’s my fault,” Parker says immediately, and Breanna knows Alec can’t ever find it within himself to blame Parker for anything—but for this, he just might. “Not Sophie’s. I didn’t see it with Wright. I thought he was a bastard who was making his enemies disappear. I thought having Harry and Breanna be together would be enough and it wasn’t and it’s my fault and—” She presses her fists against her closed eyes. “If you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at me. Not Sophie. Me.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Sophie tries to reassure.

“But I should have,” Parker snaps.

Breanna hangs up the phone. Alec will call her once he’s on the plane. Private jets have good Wi-fi. Even an international emergency flight, if Roy's the one who chartered it. He can decide who he wants to be angry at. Breanna has other priorities right now. “Is Harry okay?”

Sophie and Parker exchange a quick glance. One of those old people things they do.

“Eliot’s with him,” Sophie says. “Upstairs. If you wanted to go up there, I could go back up with you.”

Breanna swallows. She doesn’t need a freaking babysitter. She’s a grown woman. She’s not the one who got hurt. Then she thinks about the woman who initially contacted them about Hank Hogan. Jennifer. She remembers how she’d initially scheduled the meeting with Harry alone and then had a panic attack. Harry had gotten Sophie and had her sit with them to keep her calm. Then she thinks about how Sophie hadn’t been enough, so he’d gotten Breanna to come, too, and told Eliot to make himself busy elsewhere and kept Parker on speed dial just in case.

Jennifer hadn’t taken her eyes off Breanna and Sophie the entire time. She’d talked to Harry, answered his questions, nodded when he’d answered hers, but she might as well have only been with Breanna and Sophie.

Maybe in this situation, Eliot is Harry. She’s Sophie. And Sophie’s her. Maybe Sophie wants to come up there with her not for Breanna’s benefit—although it probably doesn’t hurt, since this is Sophie—but Harry’s.

But Harry’s not Jennifer. He knows Sophie. He likes Sophie. Sometimes, the way he looks at her, Breanna thinks he might love her and not know it. Other times, the way he looks at her, she thinks he might love her and definitely know it.

He hadn’t wanted Breanna to look when it—happened. “It happened.” She’s a grown woman. She can say the damn word—not even say it. She can think it. He hadn’t wanted Breanna to look when when Wright raped him. He sure as hell wouldn’t want Sophie to look.

“I’ll call you if I need you,” she says. “I’m just gonna… I’m gonna check on him.”

The walk off the stage and up the stairs feels like it takes two years. Eliot’s standing outside one of the bathrooms, staring off into the distance and posed up like an action figure. He snaps back when he sees her.

“How’re you feeling?” He asks, voice low. She can hear the water running. Not the shower, but the sink.

“Bad,” she says. “How’s… Is Harry in there?”

He nods. “You want to see him.”

“He’s my friend,” Breanna says when he doesn’t keep going. “Did you… I mean…” Her mouth feels funny. Harry can probably hear her through the door, so she tries to whisper her question. “Did you get the first aid kit?”

Eliot rubs his face. “Wrapped up his arm. Set it. Figured I’d give him some time by himself first before anythin’ else,” he says. “Parker said she’d take care of you. Me n’ Sophie said we’d handle Harry. But he’s not opening the door.”

Breanna steps around him and knocks. “Hey. Harry. Can I come in there?”

Judging by Eliot’s expression, he’s not expecting her to get an answer. She’s not sure if she is, either. But Harry’s voice comes hoarsely through the door anyway. “Okay.”

Breanna opens the door and slips inside, closing it fast enough behind her that Eliot can’t look inside. She doesn’t think Harry actually cares about that, but he said she could come in, not that Eliot could.

Harry’s sitting on the floor with his back against the old tub, hugging his knees to his chest. His eyes are red-rimmed and his hair and face are wet like he’s been splashing himself with water. He’s fully clothed minus the suit jacket he’d had on, which is good. Breanna hadn’t even realized that was something she’d need to be worried about, although she doesn’t think he would’ve ever told her she could come in if he wasn’t. There’s a red spot on his sleeve and shirt around where she can see a bandage beneath the cloth. That must’ve been the ‘graze’ Parker was talking about. The one that had looked so much worse.

The sink is just running, though. The water’s so hot steam is rising from it. Breanna turns it off.

“Sorry,” he rasps, closing his eyes. “I didn’t make it to the toilet and threw up in there a bunch of times. I was trying to wash it out.”

Breanna sits down on the floor with him, back to the door. “I’m not gonna ask if you’re okay,” she says. “‘Cause I know you’re not.” Tears start filling her eyes and she tries her best to blink them away. “But Eliot’s outside if you wanna talk to him.”

“Are you okay?” Harry asks instead of acknowledging that Eliot’s out there waiting for him.

Breanna touches her split lip. “I had pudding.”

“Oh, was it good?” His eyes are still closed.

“It was fine. Alec’s flying back here from Seoul. Said he’ll be here by tomorrow.” Breanna hugs her own knees. “I’m—I’m not gonna make you talk about it, either. And I won’t let them make you do it.”

Harry buries his face in his hands. There are indentations on his wrists where the handcuffs were. Breanna’s got matching ones. That makes her notice something and frown, though.

“What happened to your watch?”

“Someone stole it,” Harry says. His shoulders start shaking, and for a minute Breanna’s worried he’s breaking down in sobs before the hysterical laughter leaks out.

“They stole your watch?” Wait, is she crying now? No, she’s laughing, too.

“I know,” he wheezes.

For a second, the two of them just sit there laughing like idiots. Breanna tries to muffle it with her hand but Harry just throws his head back and laughs, tears spilling down his face.

“Sorry,” Breanna chokes once her laughter has subsided enough that she’s actually capable of speech again. “That’s so stupid.”

“I know,” he repeats. He presses his knuckles into the space between his eyes, body still shuddering. 

Breanna sniffles, wiping her nose and eyes on the back of her hand. “Uh. Parker’s taking us off the con. I dunno if you care. I don’t.”

Harry nods listlessly. His head rolls to the side until he’s looking up at the ceiling. “Can I—ask? Something?”

“Sure.” Breanna rests her chin on her hand even though it makes her lip throb.

“When we were in the van. With Wright.” She pretends not to hear how his voice cracks on the name. “And after. Did you—did anybody… Did they…”

“No,” she says honestly. She shivers. “Can I ask you something?” She waits for him to nod. “Did you know what he was going to do when he asked…”

“The second time,” Harry says hoarsely. He keeps looking at the ceiling and not at her. “At first I thought they’d just hit me and be done with it. Maybe they’d kill me right away, but they seemed like they wanted to have some fun with it, and I knew I’d rather they hurt me than you. And then I saw Wright, and he was…” He shudders. “Excited.”

He barely manages to turn and get up onto his knees so when he vomits it goes into the tub. It doesn’t sound like much comes up. Breanna sees the stain on the back of his pants and her own stomach roils.

“I don’t—I don’t know if I can say thank you,” she says when he’s stopped retching, although his back is still to her and there’s definitely still shaking. “‘Cause I don’t—I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—”

“I know,” he says, gagging a little.

“But I don’t want it to happen to you, either,” Breanna says. “I don’t—I want to go back in time and make it never happen. I wish Parker hadn’t killed him so I could’ve done it. I wish—”

“Parker killed him?” Harry looks over his shoulder. “Eliot said he was dead. He didn’t say who did it. Or how.”

“I don’t know how,” Breanna says, although she has kind of a good idea based on what Parker said about the kind of crime scene the cops will think they’ve stumbled on. “But I know she did it. For you.” For us. “He’s never going to hurt anyone again. I just wish I coulda made it hurt more, you know?”

Harry sighs into the tub after a long moment of silence. “I should… I… it…”

“Eliot?” Breanna guesses.

He nods shortly. “I just don’t want to talk to him about it. He’s already going to have to…” He motions with his hand. “You know.”

“I’ll tell him to shut up. That usually works,” Breanna says. She slides forward on her butt, using her hands to push herself a little closer to him. “I’ll go out there and tell him. I just. Uh. I wanted to tell you something first. Just in case you were wondering?”

He looks at her, and Breanna’s pretty sure it’s only knowing what she’s about to say to him that makes what little she saw flash across her vision.

“I closed my eyes,” she says. “I dunno if you could tell. But you—you making sure I knew to look away. That protected me from that.”

There’s palpable relief in Harry’s expression. He rubs his mouth with his sleeve. “I wish I could have protected you from all of it.”

Instinct is what makes her reach for him, but his immediate flinch makes her drop her hands. “Sorry, I—”

He crawls across the floor and meets her halfway, hugging her tightly. She wraps her arms around his waist, burying her face in the fabric of his shirt and trying to ignore everything but his heartbeat. She knows he’s crying because she can feel something wet hitting the top of her head. He’s not as good at hugging as Alec is. But he’s pretty good.

“I know I just said it’s fucked up if I say thanks,” she mumbles, “but—even though it is really fucked up. Thank you. I. Uh. Love you, man. Y’know?”

He squeezes her tighter. “You know I love you too.”

“Yeah.” Breanna shakes her head to chase away the film of today trying to cling to her mind. Because it is fucked up and she doesn’t want to say it but she is grateful on some stupid level and—her head and chest both hurt. “I know.”