When she had cried, he had held her and whispered that it was okay, though they both knew that was a lie. He was a soldier, always had been, and it wasn’t the killing that wounded him so deeply, it was the idea of Natalie doing it.
“You didn’t have a choice,” he’d said, and she had nodded into his chest.
“I know.”
She wasn’t going to have a nervous breakdown, wasn’t going to question the reasons for her actions. She was fully aware of them. But he could see the change in her, see that her world had become a darker place, and he knew that she would probably carry that forever. Not every moment, not even most. But the weight would never really vanish.
You owe her everything. Every pure thing in your life has flowed from Natalie.
And you have given her nothing but fear and pain. You owe her more.
The things we do for our children, he thought. She had said that to him almost a year ago. He squeezed her hand again, and she blinked and smiled at him.
The diner was a madhouse, full to bursting with construction crews and research scientists and United States marines. But when the hostess saw him, she lit up like a forest fire, said, “Right this way, Mr. Cooper. We’ll make space.” Her voice was louder than he would have liked, and half the restaurant turned to look, pointing and shooting him nods and thumbs-up.
“Ohmygawwwd,” Natalie said. “Is that really you, Mr. Cooper? Can I have your autograph? Please, please, oh pretty please?”
He gave her the finger.
The food was greasy goodness, fries cooked crisp, burgers that tasted the way he remembered from when he was a kid, washed down by rich chocolate milkshakes. The four of them laughed and joked, falling easily into the long-held rhythms of a happy family. It was good; it was more than good.
Afterward, they went for a walk. Columns of dust rose into the cold blue sky in all directions as construction crews demoed damaged buildings. Pillars of dust were an improvement on pillars of smoke, he figured. They stayed near the city center, which was largely undamaged. When they happened on a playground, both kids flashed questioning looks, then raced off to join the other children in a free-form game of tag that operated under elaborate rules he couldn’t parse. Cooper and Natalie took a bench in the sun, sitting close.
“Would you look at that?” She smiled. “I know it’s just a playground. But still. They’re all playing together.”
“Do you think it will last?”
“We can hope, right?”
They sat together, bellies full, watching children play. A simple pleasure, one of the everyday joys that Cooper rarely got enough of, and he could have sat there forever in pleasant, companionable silence. Instead he said, “I spoke to the president today.”
“Ramirez? Really?”
He nodded. “She wants me to join the government.”
“Savvy PR move.”
“Yeah, but I get the sense she’s sincere. Made it clear I could pretty much write my ticket, be an ambassador, an advisor. Though she did have a suggestion.” He paused. “She asked me to come back to the DAR.”
“As an agent?” Natalie’s voice was incredulous.
“No,” Cooper said. “As the director.”
She whistled.
“I told her that I didn’t think there was a place for the old DAR now. She agreed. She wants to completely re-envision it, change it from a monitoring agency to, well, something new. Ethan’s formula is under wraps, but now that everyone knows it exists, there will need to be some sort of policy. Plus, there are still plenty of terrorist organizations out there, and hate groups on both sides. The president said she saw the new DAR not being solely about watching abnorms, but more about the intersection between . . .” He looked at her and trailed off.
Natalie’s spine was tight, shoulders bunched, her hands folded in her lap. One of her surest tells, one his gift had patterned long ago. It meant that she was thinking about their relationship and was about to bring it up.
It was a moment he’d dreaded, because though he loved her, would always love her, he was going to have to tell her that he wanted to be with another woman.
“Listen,” he said, at the same time that she said, “I’m sorry.”
They stopped awkwardly. “Go ahead.”
“I have to apologize. I don’t think I . . .” Natalie sighed. Rubbed her hands together. “Look. I never liked what you did, even though I understood. But it just kept getting harder. While we were together, and even after we split up. I was scared all the time. I’d be sitting in a meeting, or, I don’t know, folding Kate’s pajamas, and my imagination would just serve up these pictures, these vivid little daymares of things that could be happening to you. Ways you could be getting hurt, or . . .”
She sighed. “Anyway. Then you left the department and started working for President Clay. You were still trying to make things better, but you were safe. And maybe it was the worry, or maybe it was that I thought the worry was over, but somewhere in there, I started to wonder if we’d given up too easily.”
“Natalie, I—”
“Just let me do this, okay?” She stared straight ahead. “We’ve loved each other forever. And you’re a great dad, and . . . We were good together. Really good.”
He nodded.
“I thought I knew what your world was like. But I didn’t, not really. I’d been a tourist. The other night I lived there. All on my own. I did what I had to do. To protect the kids, same as you. But I hated it. I can’t live like that. I won’t.”
From the playfield, Kate waved, and Natalie waved back. “I know you’ve always thought your gift was our problem. But mostly it’s the world you live in. When you joined Clay, I pretended that you were leaving that life. But you haven’t. And now I understand that you can’t.” She turned to face him. “You can’t, babe. You’re too good at it. We need you. They need you. The next John Smith is out there somewhere.”
“Natalie—”
“I know I made this messy. I reached out to you. I don’t regret it. And I don’t regret”—she almost-smiled—“making love again. But I’m sorry, Nick. I was wrong. I can’t be with you. Not that way. I just can’t.”
He looked at her, at the face he had kissed a million times, the skin he knew every freckle and line of. The woman who had once been the first girl he’d fallen in love with. A woman who still managed to surprise him, despite his gift and their experience.
“Say something,” she said.
“I was just thinking,” he said, “that you’re amazing.”
“Oh, that.” She shrugged, smiled. “That’s true.”
Her hand reached for his.
Together they watched the children play.
CHAPTER 48
“One second,” her voice said through the wall. Then, “Stupid freaking lousy pieces of—” The door jerked open.
The device around Shannon’s right thigh was clear plastic filled with glowing green gel, stretching from two inches above her knee to two inches below her groin and bound with weird centipede-looking straps that twitched and burrowed as she moved. No doubt it was the best the Holdfast could offer—he’d never seen anything like it—but the overall effect was a cross between steampunk jewelry and medieval torture device. She saw his expression, said, “What?”
Cooper tried not to laugh. He really did. But that only made it worse. What started as a muffled snort quickly threw off the reins. It was the exasperated, you gotta be kidding me look on her face, that and the notion of the Girl Who Walks Through Walls using crutches, her lissome grace reduced to bumps and lurches.