A/N: A slightly longer chapter! Leave a review and let me know what you think! Cheers.
Sophie woke to something warm, wet, and…rough? Brushing over her forehead? She wrinkled her nose in her sleep and threw her arm out wildly, trying to push whatever it was away. Her hand hit something soft and scratchy and she opened her eyes in alarm—only to stare into the eyes of a small furry creature standing over her, staring down at her, looking like it was smiling. Her mouth fell open when she realized it was a baby alpaca.
It was the sad truth that Sophie didn't have any experience with animals at all. Her mother was allergic to most house pets and Sophie was—you guessed it—nervous of animals. She hadn't always been this way. As a young child, she'd been vivacious and full of life and mischief, inclined to curiosity and getting into trouble…it was the reason she had gained the abilities she had, in fact, her tendency to go places she shouldn't have gone to. But as she grew older and more accidents happened around her, her parents isolated her more and more—for her own protection, they said—and she became naturally inclined to nervousness. Going off to college—the first college—had been her first chance at freedom in a long time…and then it had all come crashing down due to Sophie's own stupidity. Ever since then, she'd been afraid of everything: people, technology, new experiences, cars, animals…
But she'd basically been forced to experience new things now. She was slowly changing. So even though she froze in fright for a moment, thinking the alpaca might mean to chomp on her head, she relaxed almost instantaneously, realizing how stupid she was being. It's an alpaca, not a mountain lion. They don't eat people. And it's a baby!
Her heart melted when she looked into the creature's huge, curious eyes. She very slowly sat up so as to not alarm it and then gently reached out and patted it. It felt fluffy but also scratchy, thick masses of tangled wool covering its fluffy little body. It looked like a pure white cloud on legs and Sophie found herself laughing as it stood next to her and carefully looked at her. It was the cutest thing she thought she'd ever seen. She could see a group of alpacas—larger ones—standing at the far edge of the lake in the distance. Ah, so baby here has decided to take a little field trip.
"Look at you," she crooned to it, softly patting it, not sure what else to do. "Cute little baby. Sweet little baby." Some kind of maternal instinct she'd never even realized she had was taking over and all she wanted to do was cuddle the animal and sing it a lullaby or something.
Where's the Winter Soldier? She twisted around and looked all around but didn't see him in sight. That meant nothing, of course; forest surrounded the large lake on all sides. He could have been hiding within the trees anywhere, though why he would do that she didn't know. When she turned back to the baby alpaca, she was surprised and disappointed to see that it was on its way back around the lake to its parents.
"Wait, don't go!" she called but she might have been a rock for all the attention it paid her cry. She watched it go, wondering if she should chase after it—but no, why would she do that? What was she going to do? Force it to become her pet? Its parents or herd or whatever would probably kill her if she tried to go after the baby anyway. Did alpacas trample people? She didn't know and she didn't want to find out firsthand.
She turned at the sound of footsteps to see the Winter Soldier emerging from the forest, pocketing a knife. She had no idea what he'd been doing and she didn't really care. Maybe he'd been using the bathroom. "Hey, Winter," she called, feeling almost relaxed due to her encounter with the baby alpaca. "Look." She pointed to the alpacas across the lake, who were turning around and already making their way away from them, heading back to wherever they had come from. "Alpacas!"
He stood at the rocky, dirty bank of the lake and stared out at them, expression impassive—and then he looked at her and said, "What did you call me?" He didn't sound pleased. At all.
"Winter," she said. "I have to call you something. You know my name."
"I'm the Winter Soldier."
"That's not a name, that's a title."
"I'm the Winter Soldier," he repeated.
"I know!" she said, frustrated, getting to her feet and brushing herself off. "But that's not a name! Unless you have a real name you go by?" He was silent. "Alex? Jack? Collin?" He remained silent. She huffed. "You must have a name. No one is born and doesn't get named. Um…Tom? Will? Gary? James?"
He twitched suddenly, an involuntary shuddering jerk of the shoulders and fingers, and growled, "I'm the Winter Soldier. No name."
"Then I'm going to call you Winter," she snapped.
He slowly tilted his head to look up at the sky and she thought she heard him let out a long-suffering sigh but she might have just imagined it. Finally he looked back at her, hands clenched tightly at his side, and said, "What are you doing now?"
She looked out at the lake, which wasn't murky as she'd assumed last night but glittering crystal clear. It looked fresh, cold, and clean—exactly what her dirty clothes and aching scalp and body needed. "I'm going to take a bath," she decided. "And wash all my clothes." She still had her original bundle of clothes, her yoga pants and t-shirt. "What are you going to do?"
"Stay here."
"And watch me?" she squeaked. The lake was clear as glass—he would be able to see everything, unless she swam to the very middle of the lake far away…and then she would have a hard time washing her things and her hair if she was too busy treading water to stay afloat. She wasn't a great swimmer and she didn't want to go beyond standing level. "Hell no! Go away!"
"So you can drown yourself?" he asked cuttingly.
Sophie blinked. The thought had never even occurred to her. But even if it had, she would never have done it. She'd made a promise to herself that she wouldn't kill herself. She would keep herself alive until someone else did the deed for her. But she certainly wasn't going to tell him that; it was a private and highly personal promise. He didn't need to know she'd been suicidal for a while, even if he constantly suspected her of it. It occurred to Sophie how disturbing it was that he recognized that her situation was bad enough for her to possibly want to kill herself—and he still didn't give a damn. It was like he was saying, I know I'm making you want to kill yourself but that doesn't matter.
It was sick.
"Fine," she said in a rage. "Then watch! I don't care!" She really did care, of course, but what could she do? Not wash up? That wasn't an option. She was dying to get clean. She would have literally murdered someone right now for some shampoo and a bar of soap. As it was, clean, cold water would have to do.
Knowing he was watching her, sitting a little ways away from the banks of the lake, Sophie decided to go about the routine in a very slow and methodical way. She set her bundle of old clothes down at the edge of the water and weighed them down with a large, smooth rock. Kicking her Converse off, she walked right into the water fully-clothed. The rocks under her feet were more like huge, very smooth and slippery pebbles, covered in soft moss. Spindly-legged little water striders skated peacefully across the surface of the water and tiny little fish nibbled at Sophie's toes. It was freshwater so she hoped there weren't any alligators or crocodiles around. The thought made her swallow in fear. This didn't seem like a climate or environment for alligators but one never knew. Once she was standing neck-deep in water, she very slowly pulled her clothes off until she was only in her underwear. She kept her eyes down on the water, not even wanting to see if he was looking at her or not. She hoped he wasn't. He didn't seem like he gave a damn about these things. She peeked up at him—and sure enough, he was staring at the mountains beyond them with narrowed eyes and a blank expression.
She shivered, though she wasn't sure if it was from the cold water or his emptiness. Was there anything in him? How had this happened to him? What happened to a man to make him this way? Had he gone through some type of terrible trauma or something? Sophie wasn't sure she wanted to know. What if it made her feel sorry for him? He didn't deserve her sympathy.
She slowly wrung her cargo pants, long-sleeved shirt, and jacket in the water, twisting and scrunching under the water as much as the possibly could to get the dirt and blood out of them. She could see grime coming out of them so clearly it was working a little. When she felt like she had done enough, she made her way to the shore, praying to god that he wasn't looking at her. In only her underwear she felt wildly exposed. She quickly ripped on her old clothes—the yoga pants and t-shirt—and then carried her sopping wet, freshly washed clothes to the grass beyond the lake. She spread them out so they received full sun exposure and then she walked right back into the lake fully clothed again.
This was the tricky part. After much struggling, swearing, splashing around, and accidentally going under and ingesting water in the wrong way, she managed to take her underwear off while still wearing her old clothes. She washed them the same way she had done her other set of clothes. When she was satisfied they were reasonably clean, she let out a sigh and began doggy-paddling to the center of the lake. She didn't let herself go very far but suddenly she was treading water. She could feel panic already starting to rise in her—what if some creature got her from below? What if she slipped under? Her anxiety kept whispering ugly thoughts to her—so she worked quickly. Clamping her underwear between her legs, she pulled her t-shirt and yoga pants off. Then she somehow got her underwear back on. The whole thing left her feeling extremely drained. It was like doing underwater aerobics. She didn't think she'd ever worked out this much before in her entire life. Once she had her underwear properly on, she doggy-paddled back to a depth she could stand at, her heart rate returning to normal once she didn't have to tread water to stay afloat. Then she washed her old set of clothes the way she had done twice before. Once those were clean, she rushed ashore this time and spread them in the sun again before sprinting back into the lake and throwing herself in, not daring to look at him. She wasn't a prude but the thought of him—with his empty, mechanical eyes—watching her while she did this was almost too much to bear.
He tried not to look at her. He really did. He focused on the mountains and the sun in the distance as she splashed around idiotically, doing god knew what. He folded his arms and considered their plan for getting out of here. None of his electronics were working, either damaged from the crash or there was absolutely no signal out here—or a mix of the two. They seemed to have been dropped into total alien territory. They were going to have to keep following this valley because judging by the position of the stars and the sun, it was headed east—in the direction of Brazil. Which was exactly what they needed. If they turned around and went the opposite way, they'd end up at the ocean eventually, or perhaps Colombia.
He saw a sudden movement and his eyes snapped up, immediately scanning the surroundings for danger—but no, it was just her. The girl. She hurried out of the lake dripping wet, wearing only her undergarments, holding a sopping bundle under her arms, and she quickly yanked on a pair of her clothes. He averted his gaze, giving her the privacy she so desired, but he couldn't help but notice that his face felt a degree warmer. He frowned to himself. Why? Was he getting ill?
He watched her swim out further in the lake, keeping a close eye in case she decided to drown herself—or even started drowning by accident. She began flailing and splashing around somewhat maniacally and he almost half-rose, thinking she was struggling—but no, she was staying afloat. She was just twisting around doing something. He had no idea what in the hell she was doing; she was far enough that even his enhanced eyesight couldn't make it out, with her wet clothes floating and billowing around her. Shrugging slightly, he sat back down and focused on the mountains again.
Then she swam back and raced out of the lake again, yet again in her undergarments and holding a bundle of wet clothes under her arms. She was washing her clothes but he didn't understand what this routine was, why she was running about like she was on some sort of drug. He couldn't help but slant his eyes in her direction as she knelt, frantically patting her wet clothes down onto the grass yards away from him. Her dark, straight hair clung to her neck and back and water droplets fell off her dark lashes. He felt warm again as he couldn't help but watch her and the oddest feeling rose up in him—a strange, hazy feeling that felt like a…memory? Or some type of…déjà vu? Some strange feeling that told him that at some point…in his memory that he couldn't distinguish, through all the dark blurs and icy cold faded shots…he had had a very different reaction to seeing a sight like this. Something curled not altogether unpleasantly deep in his naval and his skin felt warm again.
He dropped his eyes as quick as a stone, feeling shaken to the core, his skin tingling and blood running cold. His chest felt tight with confusion and alarm. For a moment there…a tiny moment…he'd wanted to touch her.
Just to see if she felt as soft as she looked right now.
He pressed his hands to his eyes, wondering if he was getting heatstroke or going mad. His head seemed to be cooking inside his brain and pressure was building up behind his eyes, making him let out small grunts and hisses of pain. His breathing turned erratic and he dully wondered if he was suffering what they called a heart attack. He hadn't thought it possible—he was in peak physical condition and didn't suffer from the ailments that plagued normal, weak humans—but what else could explain why he felt so strange right now?
Suddenly he was up and racing toward the water, not even caring about anything other then cooling his head off. He threw himself expertly into the lake, diving under and going as deep as he could to clear his head.
Sophie was startled by a huge, heavy splash and looked up to see him—the Winter Soldier—dive into the lake a couple of yards away. She stumbled and float-hopped backward in alarm, wondering what he was doing. Was he coming to get her?
She slowly spun in a circle, the water making her buoyant and bouncy, warily looking around for him. She'd been rubbing her body and her scalp and hair as hard as possible, ducking under and swirling her head around the water, when he'd dove in. Her eyes scanned the lake surface, desperately looking for him. For some reason, she had the irrational fear that he was going to grab her leg and yank her below—leftover fears from a bad encounter at a community pool when she'd been ten. But he didn't show up—nor did he surface. Who could hold their breath this long? Well—if anyone can, it'd be him, of course.
She decided this was a good opportunity to get out of the lake, while he wasn't around. She splashed to the shore, hurrying as fast as she could, and ran to the first set of clothes she'd left out to dry. They were lightly damp but felt mostly dry by now so she yanked them on, yoga pants and t-shirt. She didn't even care if her underwear was still wet—it was warm and sunny enough that if she lay on the grass, they would presently dry. Her clothes smelled like grass and fresh air and the outdoors and they felt slightly crinkly and stiff, having been wind- and sun-dried, but she didn't care. They felt clean and that was all that mattered. She smoothed down her dark brown hair as much as she could, wishing she had a comb, and then she lay back on the grass. She lifted her shirt to expose her stomach so that her undergarments would dry as fast as possible and then closed her eyes.
She slitted open one eye and looked at the lake. He still hadn't resurfaced. Holy crap, is he dead? Did he drown?! She didn't deny it: she felt a slight thrill of horror when she realized he might actually be dead. She'd wished for him to be dead and gone so many times but now…actually faced with the reality…she realized how alone she would be out here.
Just as she'd been facing the fact that she might well and truly be alone, he cleanly burst through the surface of the water and swam to the shore in powerful, fast strokes. She watched him emerge, dripping wet, and her mouth fell open when she realized he'd gone swimming fully clothed in his combat gear—including his combat boots. Who the hell did that?! Didn't his clothes weigh an extra fifteen pounds or something? Just exactly how strong was he?
Sophie couldn't decide if she was impressed, or more terrified of him than she ever had been before.
He collapsed on the grass a couple of yards away from Sophie and lay down just as she was laying, closing his eyes. She slowly sat up and looked at him, frowning. With his slight frown and closed eyes and wet, dark hair stuck to his cheeks and neck, he looked…oddly innocent. Boyish. He even looked tired. This surprised Sophie. He seemed like he had never-ending stamina and energy…but apparently not. Even he was a human, despite not seeming like one most of the time.
They both lay on the grass as the day passed. Sophie didn't know why he wasn't on the move considering he was normally so go, go, go but she didn't mind so much. She felt a little weak with hunger and the warmth of the sun and the breeze made her feel incredibly listless and sleepy. She didn't mean to, but she drifted off into sleep. It was probably very dangerous to sleep here by the lake—what if it was the local watering hole for the animals in the region including the mountain lions?—but she couldn't help it. She just felt too weak to move right now.
When she opened her eyes, the sun was on the opposite side of the sky. It wasn't setting yet but it had turned slightly more golden and she could tell it was late afternoon. Her clothes and undergarments were completely dry and her hair felt fluffy from being air-dried. She felt amazingly clean. She slowly turned her head, expecting him to be gone—but no, he was still laying there. She stilled, wondering if he had died or something. This was definitely not like him at all, as far as she knew him.
She slowly crawled over to him and knelt next to him, looking down at his pale face. He needed a good shave. He didn't look like he was breathing and she whispered, "Winter?" He didn't stir. Very, very slowly, she put her head down on his chest and closed her eyes, trying to feel for any chest movement or listen for a heartbeat. His clothes were too thick for her to feel a heartbeat but it didn't matter because now she could feel the slight rise and fall of his chest and abdomen as he breathed. So he was alive. She lifted her head and looked down at him—and let out a loud scream when she realized his eyes were open and he was looking at her.
She threw herself backward and shrieked, "What the hell!" He sat up, never taking his eyes off of her, and she shrilly asked, "Were you awake that whole time?"
"No. You woke me up." He stretched slowly, pushing his shoulders back. "What were you doing?"
"Checking to make sure you were alive," she snapped.
"And you didn't feel for a pulse." It wasn't a question—a statement. She colored. He was right, there'd been an easier and much less touchy-feely way to see if he was alive. Why hadn't she done that? Because I'm an idiot, that's why, she told herself.
"I forgot," she said sullenly. "Sorry, I'll make sure to do that next time I think you're dead."
He looked almost thoughtful as he slowly said, "That's twice you could have stabbed me in the neck and you didn't. Why?"
Sophie was stunned. She realized that it hadn't even occurred to her this time that she had the opportunity to kill him. That thought seemed to have slipped away entirely. "I need you to survive," she admitted grudgingly. "I don't know how to get out of this valley alone."
"I'm not taking you home." Another statement.
She sighed. "I know." Home was a pipe dream right now.
"I'm completing the mission."
"I know." She also knew that this—this laying around on the grass, this temporary peace they seemed to have made at the moment—was all fleeting and meaningless in the grand scheme of things. He was going to finish his mission, she knew this now, and deliver her to whoever he worked for and when they had her… Her stomach shuddered sickeningly. She could only hope that they only wanted to hold her for ransom—but deep down inside, she knew that hope was getting fainter and fainter by the minute. Her parents were wealthy, as many people in Washington D.C. were, but they were nowhere near wealthy enough to warrant the insane amount of effort that had been orchestrated for her kidnapping.
No…these people wanted her for more. Her throat tightened and her lips pressed together in a hard line. They wanted her for what she could do.
"Then let's get going," she said suddenly, standing up and gathering up her other set of clothes. "We wouldn't want you to be late in completing your mission." She began marching around the lake, not even checking to see if he was following. There was really only one direction for them to go in so it didn't matter if he followed or not. They would end up at the same place anyway.
Since they had essentially slept most of the day away—he must have been more tired than she'd thought—they had enough energy to keep walking late into the night. The lake came to an end but it narrowed into a decent-sized stream that spanned about fifteen feet across (it was more of a small river, really) and kept snaking through the valley and through the dense forest that dotted the valley, intermixing with patches of grassy fields. They walked through it all, keeping close to the river, silent and watchful for any predators or other human beings. Any sign at all that they weren't alone out here. At one point the valley became so narrow that it was essentially two mountain slopes merging into each other and they had to hike and climb up for an hour before the valley widened and flattened out again. She saw a few more bunches of alpacas and some small, furry creatures that resembled squirrels scurrying up tree trunks and disappearing into holes in the ground. Huge, ugly birds that looked like vultures glided overhead once or twice from one mountain perch to another.
They walked and walked and walked. It seemed that the walking would never end. That the mountains would never end. The blades tucked into Sophie's shoes began to chafe her with every step but she tried to hide her limping from him. She couldn't let him know that she had two of his daggers. They were all she had in terms of self defense. Temperatures dropped as they trekked through the valley. It never got as cold as it had up in the mountains—thank God, because Sophie was never sleeping that close to the Winter Soldier ever again—but she still ended up pulling the long-sleeved shirt over her t-shirt and then zipping up the oversized hoodie over both of those. She threw her hood up, stuck her hands in the front pockets, and kept trekking. She kept a lookout for any wild animals but so far they hadn't seen anything terrifying. They'd passed what looked like a herd of bison at one point—though Sophie had no idea if they were truly bison, not being an expert on the animals of the Andes mountains—and she'd seen Winter looking at them speculatively but she really did not want to know what was going through his mind then.
She couldn't see very well in the dark but his hand would shoot out and grab her shoulder almost painfully if she was about to trip down a hill or something. Eventually the forests thinned out to just fields and then the view in front of her was clear: stars twinkling in the dark, thin clouds blanketing the sky, dark mountain silhouettes rising up everywhere she turned. She had no idea where they were headed but she could only hope that they were walking in the right direction and would end up somewhere normal. She didn't want to die in the Andes mountains, though judging by the pain in her feet, she had a feeling she might actually breathe her last breaths out here.
They walked through the night and Sophie wondered if it was normal that they hadn't encountered any people out here. She also wondered if it was normal that she had the sudden urge to eat grass. Her stomach had gone past growling loudly and embarrassingly—now it was only a dull, gnawing ache. She couldn't tell what she found more horrifying: the terrible hunger…or the fact that she was getting used to it.
And she had no idea how Winter was surviving. If she was hungry, she couldn't imagine how he felt. He looked like he needed as much calories as an Olympic gold medalist swimmer. When she glanced at him she noticed that his face was looking slightly paler and more gaunt than normal… The shadows under his eyes seemed darker. But he wore the same serious, dead expression on his face, a cross between total blankness, a scowl, and a childish pout. She couldn't make it out. Was he thinking nothing or was he thinking everything?
Dawn broke, washing the skies with milky blues and golden colors, and Sophie let out a sigh of relief. They hadn't encountered any danger but hiking through the Andes mountains at night had been a nerve-wracking, chilly experience that she didn't want to ever experience again. Unfortunately she had the feeling she would be doing it again if they didn't find their way out of these godforsaken mountains soon.
She and Winter hadn't spoken in a long while so she decided to voice something that had been bothering her for a while now. "So why exactly did our plane crash anyway?" she asked. Predictably, he remained silent. Sophie had expected this. However, she was slowly learning how to work with him. From her experience, it seemed that when she started babbling nonstop, he usually spoke to shut her up. So she took a deep breath and got started. "Because that was terrifying. I've been in planes before, of course, and I've imagined going down—and I've read about planes going down—but no one can ever really prepare you for what it's like, you know? The way your body shuts down because you think, This is it. This is the end." She paused thoughtfully, looking at the slowly lightening sky. "But despite all that, it was like my heart started beating faster. Like even though I thought I was going to die and was shutting down, my heart wanted me to survive. Unless my heart somehow knew I was going to survive. Do you believe in premonition like that? Amazing. But horrible. I never want to go through that again. So I guess I want to know why our plane went down, so I can make sure to avoid that in the future. Did the plane malfunction? It didn't seem like it was—"
"He betrayed Hydra, alright?" he snarled.
Victory. A ringing silence hung between them as Sophie nearly let out a yell of joy and his hands clenched, his body stiffened, as he seemed to realize what an error he'd made. He let something slip! He finally let something slip!
Of course, the information meant nothing to Sophie. She had no idea who, or what, Hydra was. But still, it was a name and a name meant information and information could be deadly in the wrong hands…out of any person, Sophie knew this best of all.
"Did he, now?" she asked slyly. "And how would, uh, Hydra feel about that?"
"Listen, you—" He was whispering, swinging around, and suddenly Sophie felt the cold metal of a blade being pressed to her throat. She froze, not daring to breathe. "If you say—if you mention—" He seemed to have been rendered incoherent. Sophie's blood was running cold, her heart was pounding, and she had broken out in a cold sweat of fear—but she very slowly raised her head and gave him the most disdainful look she could, mustering every bit of courage and bravado and show that she had in her.
"Do it," she challenged. "Because I'm going to keep asking."
His mouth twisted and he bared his teeth, his eyes wild and rabid, pressing his blade more tightly against her throat. His other hand, the metal one, gripped the back of Sophie's head, holding it in place so she couldn't jerk away from the blade. His fingers dug painfully into her hair. "I—" His voice was a mere whisper. "I will—"
"You won't," she whispered back, hardly breathing, her hands trembling either with fear or rage. She couldn't tell. "The mission, remember? So you may as well tell me who—or what—Hydra is. Who am I going to tell, huh? I'm going to be delivered to him eventually anyway. Consider it…educating me."
"Maybe I need to educate you on keeping your mouth shut," he hissed. The blade pressed into her throat and she felt a sharp pinch as it nicked her. She had nothing left to say so she waited. It took all of her effort, her hands trembling at her sides, to stand there and let him press the blade to her throat, his hand holding her head...but she did it. She didn't know where she summoned the courage from, how she didn't break down in tears or pee her pants, but she somehow did it.
Finally, he slowly, ever so slowly, lowered his blade and released his grip on her head. Her fingers flew to her throat and came away stained with red. She looked at her red-stained fingertips and then slowly traced a finger across the thin cut on her neck. She looked up at him, her mouth a flat line, and his face seemed to be hidden in half-shadow with the sun rising slowly behind him, throwing golden-orange light into her eyes. She took a step forward and he jerked back a step, almost as if he expected her to attack him. She rubbed her bloody fingers on her jacket, shouldered past him, and said, "Let's keep going."
They walked in silence for a good half an hour as the sky kept lightening, the morning began to warm up, birds gliding past them overhead, and suddenly, his rough voice spoke beside her. "Hydra is—"
She slowly turned to look at him. He wasn't looking at her. He was frowning at his hands as he walked, examining them so carefully that it seemed he was looking for the secrets of the universe in the flesh and metal. "They are—" He stopped again and scowled, bit his lip, bared his teeth. His eyebrows were drawn together and he seemed torn between utter bewilderment and total anger.
"They are?" she prompted quietly.
"They're the ones who—I am—"
A strange, cold feeling was growing in Sophie's chest as she watched him speak haltingly. She had never seen him refer to himself as a person in such a…vulnerable way before. He'd never seemed like a real person to her before—not to herself and not even to himself, it seemed. He certainly didn't carry himself as if he were a real, functioning man who knew who he was. But now…it looked like he was struggling with something. Sophie wanted to help him say the words but she had no idea what he was trying to say. Was he telling her something about Hydra, which appeared to be a group? Or something about himself?
"I'm their asset," he finally said, speaking slowly, choosing the words very carefully. His voice had become robotic again. "I am their…" His voice trailed off. She saw him take a sharp intake of breath. "Asset," he repeated, murmuring the word.
Who is this man?
