Harry Styles, a secret service agent working for British intelligence is tasked with finding the killer after a series of brutal but calculated murders across Europe. His mind is sharp, he's smart, arrogant and works with a precision that leaves no...
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Harry Styles
"Hey," I said softly at the same time as I rested my hand on her thigh, squeezing once. "You alright?"
Winter had been quiet the entire drive back to the cabin. It was almost two hours from the hospital, and she hadn't said more than three words since we got back in the car. The radio wasn't on. There was nothing to fill the silence besides her thoughts, and mine.
"Yeah." She nodded, dropping her hand to rest on top of mine.
"You don't have to be." I drew my thumb along her palm. "You know that, right?"
"I know." She nodded, resting her head against the window, feeling the vibrations of the car as we drove down the roads surrounded by forest. "I just don't think it's set in. My brain is probably going to explode, and my best friend sold me out." She said it a little too casually. "I'll probably cry about it later. But right now... I'm fine."
"Winter..." I glanced at her, wary of her tone, of how fine she seemed to be about it all when we both knew this wasn't fine.
"Can we talk about something else?" She shook her head, sitting up straighter, trying to lighten her tone and the mood. But there wasn't anything happy we could talk about. Everything came back to this, because we had no idea what tomorrow would be. "Where are we gonna go? What's next?"
"Honestly, baby, I don't know." I sighed. "I don't know what's safe."
"Can we just get on a plane? Or that fancy train that goes underwater and we can go to some random country in Europe. Like... Finland. Or... The Netherlands."
I glanced at her again with a slight grin. "The Netherlands?"
"They have lots of tulips, I think." She shrugged.
A dimple pulled at my cheek. "You wanna go see the flowers, flower?"
She shrugged again.
"I would in a heartbeat if I could guarantee it's safe," I told her, and it sounded like a promise, because it was. If we could, we would be gone in seconds. "But you don't have a passport. And we don't have the means to get you one, or even a fake one."
"I used to have about a thousand fake ones." She closed her eyes for a moment. I knew where her mind had gone. "I'm sure I could find one somewhere."
I lifted our joined hands to his lips, pressing a slow, absent-minded kiss into her palm. I needed the contact as much as I did. It was a gesture that lingered somewhere between comfort and apology. It made my chest ache, because moments like this almost let the fantasy feel real, like we could actually do what she'd suggested.
For a second, I let myself picture it— a place where no one knew who she was, what she'd been forced to do, where we didn't wake up with blood on our hands and the constant, lingering terror that someone was going to find us.
