me ask myself a lot of questions about the Center, and the way we were raised. About my memories.” She met his eyes. “I don’t know if I can trust the things I think I remember.”
He studied her. “Like what?”
She had to count to three before she dared to open her mouth. “Sometimes, during combat training, kids would get hurt. It happened often enough, but a few times … A few times, they never came back. The instructors always told us they’d been transferred.”
“Nina.” Knox’s tone was gentle. “You had no reason to doubt that.”
“Didn’t I?” The lights in the distance blurred. “I don’t remember. It seems so obvious now—those kids died, Knox. They were beaten to death right in front of me, and I don’t remember questioning it.”
“I’m sorry. That’s a terrible thing to do to children.”
There were more memories. They flashed through Nina’s mind when she least expected them, leaving bruises that felt physical. Ice cream. Movie nights. Her ears ringing during a live-fire exercise. Laughing in the cafeteria. Hot breath on her cheek as an instructor screamed at her. Zoey drawing on the wall with paint she made after hours in one of the science labs. Blacking out in the pool because the top time for a breath-holding drill was four minutes and seventeen seconds, and she had to beat that, she had to—
“I have nightmares,” Nina whispered. “I think it’s all the things I don’t remember. And I’m scared to open the door any farther.”
“You don’t have to, if you’re not ready.” His fingers brushed her clenched fist, and he laid his hand on hers. “But you’re not alone, either. If you want to talk, you have lots of people who will be here to help you. Dani, Maya. Me.”
She shook her head to counter the sudden flutter in the pit of her stomach. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.” He stroked his thumb over the backs of her fingers, soothing and maddening, all at once. “I care about you, Nina. I know I broke your trust, and I’ll agree to any boundary you set. But if you let me…”
“No, I mean—” She pulled her hand away. “In a couple of days, you’ll be free. And you can go anywhere you want. Do anything.”
“That’s true.” He retrieved the bottle and took a slow sip. “I haven’t considered it much. From the day I cut that tracker out of my neck, I never thought I’d have a future. I figured the best I could hope for was getting my men free and safe.”
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know for sure. I never really learned how to have dreams.” His leg bounced nervously. “But—if you don’t mind us sticking around—I’d like to do something to help this neighborhood. I had this idea … I don’t know, maybe it’s stupid.”
“Knox.” She nudged his leg to stop its jittery movement, but she found herself reluctant to give up the warm, solid pressure, so she kept her leg pressed against his. “Just tell me.”
“A clinic.” He touched the dog tags she could see outlined beneath his shirt. “That’s what Mace would have wanted more than anything. I’d have to find people with medical training to run it, cultivate new connections to get the meds and tech. But Mace used to say the best way to treat people was to make sure they didn’t get sick in the first place.”
Nina’s throat ached. “We have a doctor—Dr. Wells. He does what he can, but he’s mostly a last resort. He can’t really afford to take care of everyone, so he focuses on the ones who need him most.”
“Triage,” Knox murmured.
So much of life in Atlanta boiled down to it—medically, economically. Mentally. It was a constant struggle to meet too many needs with too few resources. Nina had been juggling enough of it on her own to understand the consequences of failure. When she dropped a ball, people weren’t just disappointed. Sometimes they died.
It was exhausting.
But Knox was familiar with that level of responsibility. Maybe, if he stuck around, if he helped—
The possibility stretched out before her like a mirage, hazy and dreamlike. She was tempted to throw herself into its warmth, sink into it until she didn’t feel so cold and alone anymore. But she wouldn’t be doing any of them any favors—not herself, not Knox, and not the people of Five Points.
“You have time,” she told him. “If a clinic is what you want, you’ll make it happen. And it’ll