Elliot didn't answer right away. His eyes stayed fixed on mine, quiet, unreadable. The train hummed beneath us, a low pulse traveling through steel and breath and unspoken decisions. The silence lingered, not like a pause in speech, but like a weight before a drop.
Then, he finally looked away and exhaled.
"I'll join you," he said.
I blinked.
"But not for the whole thing. Not to the end of whatever war you're heading into. Not the government showdown, or the presidency, or the Cain Protocol, or Evelyn's kidnapping, or the Syndicate, or… whatever else you're tangled in."
My breath caught. But I stayed silent.
"I'll travel with you east," Elliot said, softer now. "To the next stops. My family lives in the last one. It was my original goal, and it's still my current one. If I leave before or you leave before then that's where we part ways."
I nodded. The relief didn't come like I expected. Just a quiet kind of gratitude. A mutual understanding. "That's fair," I said.
