Ace nods, his eyes distant with reflection. “She’s not the same woman we claimed in the Hunt.”
“No,” I agree, reaching for the washcloth. “She’s better.”
The steam fills the space between us, clouding the cracked mirror. I can see smears of Henderson’s blood still clinging to Ace’s shoulder where Keira smeared it on him. Without thinking, I step closer.
“Turn around,” I murmur. “Missed some.”
Ace complies, presenting his back to me. I press the washcloth against his skin, working careful circles over the splatters of dried blood. My touch lingers longer than necessary, tracing the familiar map of scars—evidence of our shared history, our mirrored pain.
“Remember what they told us at the Architect Program?” I say quietly. “That pain would break you or forge you?”
“I remember,” Ace says, his voice unusually soft.
“They were right about that part.” My hand stills between his shoulder blades, feeling his heartbeat through my fingertips. “What happened to Keira...it forged her. Like us.”
The water beats down, washing away the last traces of tonight’s violence. But something remains—a tenderness I rarely allow myself to feel, even with Ace.
“When she looked at Henderson,” Ace says, “I saw us. Fifteen years old, standing over Seventeen’s body.”
I nod, though he can’t see me. “Taking back what was stolen.”
I finish cleaning his back, my fingers tracing a path down his spine that reminds me we’re still two broken boys who learned to kill before we learned to live. The touch isn’t sexual—it’s deeper than that.
“We found her for the Hunt,” I say, dropping the washcloth to the floor. “But I think she found us for this.”
Silence falls between us as we finish washing away the last traces of violence. I step out of the shower first, grab one of the thin motel towels, and toss another to Ace. Water drips onto the cracked linoleum as we dry ourselves.
“She changed everything,” I say quietly, wrapping the towel around my waist.
Ace nods, his expression unusually vulnerable in the harsh bathroom light. “I didn’t expect this.”
“What?”
“To feel this way about her.” He runs a hand through his wet hair. “The Hunt was supposed to be like all the others—take what we want and walk away when we’re done.”
I lean against the sink, crossing my arms over my chest. “We’ve still got eleven months left on the contract.”
Ace’s eyes meet mine, and I see in them the same unsettling truth I’ve been avoiding. “You know that’s not going to be enough.”
A knot forms in my throat. We’ve never kept anyone before. Women and men have always been temporary diversions, interchangeable bodies to satisfy our needs before we discard them. But Keira...
“I don’t want to let her go,” I admit. “Not after a year. Not ever.”
“She fits with us,” Ace says. My twin has always been the ice-cold one, the calculated half of our whole. Seeing him acknowledge this weakness feels momentous. “Like she was made for us.”
“You think she’d stay? After the contract ends?”
Ace’s gaze slides to the door, beyond which Keira sleeps. “I think we need to make sure she has no reason to leave.”
I nod, understanding flowing between us without words. We’ve shared everything our entire lives—beds, blood, kills, women. But we’ve never shared this strange, possessive need to keep someone.
“We offer,” I suggest. “After what happened with Henderson...”
“It’s more than that,” Ace interrupts. “And you know it.”
I do know it. What we feel for Keira transcended lust not long after the Hunt ended. It’s something neither of us has a name for, something we were never taught to recognize or express.
35