Page 104 of The Lazarus Protocol

“What do you care?”

“Pretend I do.”

She rolled her eyes, then patted her pockets and found a wad of cash. “Two thousand Euros. Your friend Ice didn’t leave me destitute, so I guess that’s something.”

“He isn’t a bad guy.”

She didn’t respond to that.

“I asked what your plan is.”

“Because you care so much that you tracked me down to ask me?”

“Doesn’t mean I disagree with what Ice did. He had his reasons,” Adam said. “But it seems to me like working together might benefit both of us.”

“I can’t help you get your friend back.”

“Because you need the book to save your father?”

“Vesper doesn’t want anything to do with me. She thinks my entire existence is a joke, and she’s the last person I would ever give that book to. Even if it saves your friend.” Steph looked almost sad. “I know you have to be confident in your abilities, but you don’t know her.”

“I’ve gone up against people much worse than her.”

She bit her lip. Turned to watch the mountainside blur past them.

“You’ll just have to trust me.”

She glanced at him. “I need the book to get my father back. You need it to trade with Vesper for your friend. I think that puts us on opposite sides of this.”

Adam wasn’t convinced they would need the book in order to get Kai back, but anything he said would sound like too much bravado. “I know you’re unaccustomed to working with other people, but we can help each other.” He almost said, We’re good together but managed to keep it from slipping out. “You won’t have to do this alone anymore. Not if you don’t want to.”

“Say I trust you, I let down my guard, and in a day or two you prove this is all just because I know where the book is. You steal it from me, and I end up unconscious on a train again—this time without the cash.”

“You think you’ll get burned by everyone?”

“No one has ever proven otherwise. It isn’t worth the risk.”

“It can be,” Adam said. “Sometimes trust is more than worth the risk, and I say that as someone who has been betrayed by people I should’ve been right to have faith in. They took my allegiance and they tore it apart in a way that left me a shell of who I was. It took me three years to put myself back together, and I’m still not certain I’m whole.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I know.” He recalled what she’d said to him outside the castle. “But you’ll take it.”

The train pulled into the next station.

“Come on.”

Steph got up and followed him. Dan stepped off first, and they disembarked the train after him. Stepping outside into the chill air, and the bright blue sky. Snow-capped mountains all around them, even this time of year.

“You good?”

Adam looked at Steph, wondering if he was. “I didn’t ask for any of this. All I have it in me to do is the best I can. That means trusting someone who has proven themselves to me and trying to make the world safer for good people.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You were burned because of us,” Adam said. “If my team neutralizes Vesper, I figure that makes us even.”

“What about Earthnet?” Dan glanced between them. “You guys don’t have to keep score and make this about paying each other back for favors. We could all just work together. When it’s over, you go your separate ways, or you…don’t.” He shrugged, then looked at Adam. “I’ll call the pilot.”