A handful of times, Daniel has felt the overwhelming fear that somehow dulls and sharpens every sense all at once.
He’d expected to feel it during the rebellion, but it wasn’t until he was twenty-one that he was fully consumed with fear. He’d moved to Dallas to help his sister care for their mother, who’d been diagnosed with cancer. Daniel was at the pharmacy picking up medicine when his phone rang. He knew before answering what his sister was going to say.
Mom was dead.
The second time he felt that fear was when he walked into the apartment he shared with Lynell and saw her packed suitcase. Again, he knew what was going to happen before it did. Lynell’s own fear was controlling her. She was going to leave and use her Registration to end her pregnancy.
The third time was when Zach admitted he was Registering Lynell. That fear was with him throughout the fourteen-day Registration period, until Lynell survived Eric’s attempts to kill her.
Now, the fear is crawling toward him for the fourth time.
Lyn leaves the hospital, surrounded by security, to meet with some of the most powerful people in the country. She’s going to sit in the room where decisions are made that Daniel spent years of his life fighting against. Then she’s going to come back and tell Daniel that she wants to meet with Sawyer D’Angelo.
She said she wouldn’t, but Daniel knows Lyn better than she thinks. He saw the lie in the minuscule twitch at the corner of her right eye. He noticed the determination to do what she thinks is right in the flex of her jaw as she bit down on her back teeth. He felt it in the air the moment she made a decision she knew others would hate.
All Daniel can hope for is that she’ll tell him her plans. Because no matter the fear that nearly erases every other thought in Daniel’s mind, he’ll support her. He’d rather live in that ocean of terror by Lynell’s side than pretend he’s not drowning while abandoned on the shore.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Carter,” a nurse says before taking his vitals. While she works, Daniel’s mind wanders.
He thought he was an adult when he joined the rebellion, but he had no idea what was coming. He didn’t know how complicated, painful, and beautiful the world could be.
His own father moved to England rather than stay in a country with something as barbaric as the Registration. His mother, the gentlest person he knew, told him every day that God’s love was bigger than any man-made law. She didn’t believe in the Registration, but she bought one for her children anyway, because it mattered more that they had everything they might need to be happy than forcing them to share her beliefs.
“No one can be forced into goodness. Saints are made in the fight against temptation, not in the absence of it,” she used to say.
Daniel grew up wanting to be as good of a person as his mother, so he swore never to use his Registration. He joined the rebellion because he wanted to help bring about a better world, one his mom could be proud of.
Then he met Lyn. He fell in love with her tenacity, strength, and the vulnerability that she hated but allowed him to see anyway because she loved him, even if she waited so long to admit it. The first time he ever considered using his Registration was when she told him about Alan, her stepfather. He almost Registered that abusive son-of-a-bitch, but Lynell could tell what he was planning to do—she could always tell—and she made him promise not to.
“I love you too much to let you compromise your morals for me,” she’d said.
But now his morals could be his wife’s demise. His connection with the rebels could ruin her. The rebels could kill her. Then he wouldn’t have morals, only rage.
Lyn won’t stop until she’s confident she’s done everything in her power to do good. And she won’t hesitate to run headfirst into a death trap if she believes it’ll help people. She might think he’s the one ruled by his emotions and desire to help people, but under all her thick, impenetrable armor, Lynell loves more intensely and selflessly than anyone he’s ever known. She’ll give away her whole self to improve the world even a fraction.
That’s why he will do everything in his power to keep her safe while she’s at the front lines. If that means revisiting a life he left years ago, so be it.
He doubts any of his old contacts would know about Sawyer D’Angelo’s secret plans, and even if they did, he can’t count on old friendships to compromise their loyalty to the cause. But all he needs right now is information on who Sawyer D’Angelo is behind the scenes. What she’s capable of and how far she’ll go to get what she wants.
Because Daniel doesn’t intend to suffer through that fear ever again.