Page 99 of Dose

For nearly an hour, we work through the reports together. We remove duplicates where the identifiers match. We flag every missing year and every transfer without a destination. Theon does not let me turn estimates into facts merely because uncertainty is unbearable. I do not let him soften the language in the implementation notes.

Eventually, there are no more honest calculations to make.

I put down my pen.

“Hundreds,” I say. “At least hundreds. Maybe thousands.”

My throat closes around the rest.

“I will never know.”

Theon reaches for me as I fold.

My hands close in his shirt. My body shakes against his chest, but the crying is almost silent. Noise was never safe at Site Nine. Apparently grief remembers rules I no longer follow.

He holds me on the floor beside the bench.

He does not tell me the harm is imaginary. He does not say captivity made every action meaningless. I think I would hate him for either lie, and he knows it.

“I hate what I was,” I whisper. “I hate that I was proud.”

“I know.”

“What do I do with this?”

His arms tighten around me.

“You let it change what you do next,” he says. “You help us find the children those reports expose. You help Raphael keep them alive. And when it hurts, you don’t sit alone and call that punishment.”

I grip his shirt harder.

“You still want me?”

His hand closes around the back of my neck. He pulls my face from his chest and makes me look at him.

There is nothing gentle in his expression. I do not need gentle.

“There is nothing in those files that makes you less mine.” His thumb presses beneath my jaw. “Nothing that makes me love you gently. Nothing that makes me leave.”

Relief should not feel like this—dark, possessive, almost violent in its certainty.

It does.

The first tear slides over his hand.

“I don’t know how to forgive myself.”

“Then don’t force forgiveness tonight.” He presses his mouth to my forehead. “Tell the truth. Do the work. Let the rest take longer.”

I curl back into him.

The table waits above us, filled with names, numbers and blank spaces. The count is unfinished. It may always be unfinished.

For tonight, he lets me stop.

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ISLA