Sawyer wrestled against his restraints, rushing adrenalin numbing the fierce pain that ran from his shoulders to his wrists.

“Beth.” He tried to stand, his feet scraping uselessly on the floor. Anything to distract her. Julia’s eyes were scrunched closed, her face blanched.

Beth turned to face him in a lazy circle, keeping her weapon trained on Julia. But she was on her own. Maybe he could connect with her and persuade her to do the right thing. He refused to believe she was lost completely.

Long seconds ticked between them, and finally Beth dropped her hand, letting her gun point to the floor. Sawyer exhaled a slow, silent breath.

Beth strolled toward him, her eyes traveling the length of his body in a leisurely examination. She stopped next to his legs, her back to Julia, and bumped Sawyer’s thigh with the scuffed toe of her boot.

Leven and his red-haired friend appeared. Beth pointed to Julia and Hardy. “Darr wants these two. Leave this one here.” She turned on her heel, focusing on Sawyer as Julia and Hardy were unclipped and hustled away. Julia squawked, fighting Leven in a futile effort as he dragged her out of sight.

“I could get used to seeing you like this.” Beth squatted, her arms balanced on the tops of her thighs. Her hands hung between her knees, relaxed. “Before I have to kill you, that is.”

Sawyer held her gaze. Her grey eyes were steady, and he matched her calmness.

He wasn’t surprised Beth was alive. She was a fighter. She wouldn’t have survived the lifestyle she’d lived before the Chittrix otherwise. She was carved out of hard edges. He was just grateful she hadn’t run him through with a knife on sight, given the circumstances in which they’d last been together.

“I prepared myself for that possibility a long time ago. You’re not telling me anything new,” he said.

Her head jerked in a tiny motion of disapproval. “Yeah, I guess that’s why they gave you the job. You never were any better than us when the chips fell. You just liked to think you were.”

“I never claimed to be better than you. I tried to help.”

She snorted in disgust, her top lip curling. “Yeah. You tried to help. You just lied about everything else. Like who you were. Your real name. Why you were in my bed. Small shit like that.”

Sawyer blinked as sweat stung his eyes, his mind racing. He’d been paid to lie. But he had chosen to be in her bed. That had meant something. “I thought I was doing something good.”

“You were. You’re a good liar.”

“Beth—”

“Don’t ‘Beth’ me.” She ran her hand across his chin, stroking the stubble. “Keep telling yourself that it’s okay to lie and cheat people. Worm your way into their life. All kinds of fucked up stuff, and then tell yourself, I’m doing something good.”

She gripped his chin in a sharp pincer grip and her voice dropped to a barely audible murmur. “That’s the problem with you, Sawyer. You’re deluded. Always were. Like how you thought you could romance me into being a different person.”

She stood up, stretched her legs, and kicked him elegantly in the ribs. Pain roared through his chest as air exploded from his lungs. He rolled sideways, his restraints pulling him up short as he tried not to breathe.

“That wasn’t a lie,” he spat out.

“Liar.”

He sucked air into his bruised lungs, tuning out the lancing pain skewering his ribcage. “I tried to get you out of there, Beth. Twice I asked you to leave. To just disappear. Visit your sister. Take a holiday. Fucking anything, before it all came to a head. But you wouldn’t leave Robbie.” He shook his head. “Robbie was always going down, Beth. You just didn’t see it. You were blind to what he was. You still are. That’s why you’re so pissed at me.”

She hesitated then, the tiniest inclination of her head. “Maybe.” She blinked. Looked away. “Doesn’t matter now anyway. Nothing matters anymore.”

Sawyer rattled the metal of his handcuffs against the pipe. “Beth. Let us go. This achieves nothing.”

Her face darkened. “You can’t manipulate me anymore.”

She dropped down beside him, fingering the bottom edge of his body armor. “You have clean clothes. You’re well fed. You’re doing okay.” She rubbed the armor between her fingertips. “I haven’t seen anything like this before. This isn’t standard police-issue. This is military-grade.” She flexed the chest bodice in her hands, tilting her head to appreciate the organic blue-green facets of the chitin. “The surface is weird.”

Sawyer was silent.

She trailed her hand across his forehead and down his cheek, her nails rasping.

“So where’s your safe place, handsome?”

“Let us go. You have nothing to gain by keeping us here.”

She laughed and her eyes narrowed, sharp and predatory. “Whatever. You’re not weaseling your way out this time.”

The woman he had known, with whom he’d once shared part of his life with, was gone. Some of the responsibility for that rested on his shoulders, but she wasn’t going to allow him to make amends. He saw that now.

Julia. He was damned if he was going to die here with these people and he certainly wasn’t going to let anything happen to Julia. He hadn’t chosen this life, but he would fight for what he had.

Beth continued. “You don’t get it, do you? You’re not going anywhere, but you are going to tell us where your people are based, and what supplies they have.” Her voice was cold. “Even if I have to cut it out of you.”

Panicked shouts echoed across the ceiling, and they both glanced upward. Three shots rang out.

Sawyer wrenched at his restraints. “Beth. Now.”

Beth retreated, walking backward the last few steps. “It’s too late for the right thing, Sawyer. It was too late when you sold me out.” She turned on her heel, jogging out of sight behind the stacked crates without a backward glance.

Fuck.

Skin peeled from his abraded wrists as he wrestled with his bindings. Blood welled in thick blobs, making the metal slippery, but it was pointless. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was blind and bound, unable to respond to the sounds of battle escalating around him.