He didn’t finish the sentence, but the message was clear enough.
I watched him watching me, and in that moment, I realized that whatever came next, it would not be decided by facts or logic. It would be decided by which narrative looked best in the after-action report.
“I’ll cut off contact,” I said, the words flat and ugly in my mouth. “Effective immediately.”
He nodded, and the lines in his forehead eased, just a fraction. “Good. I’d like you to take a few days. Get some distance. Focus on Blue Spirit. We’re ahead of schedule, and I need you sharp for the next round of testing.”
I stood, gripping the edge of his desk to steady myself. The surface was so clean, so engineered, that I left a perfect imprint of my fingers on the gloss.
“If there’s nothing else,” I said.
He shook his head. “You’re dismissed.”
I walked out, the weight of the building pressing down with every step. At the far end of the corridor, the exit sign burned a bitter green, promising escape and delivering only the next layer of security.
I made it as far as the women’s room before the shaking started. I locked myself in a stall, sat on the closed toilet, and stared at the bruises on my wrists. They looked worse in this light—angrier, more deliberate. I traced the pattern with mythumb, trying to remember if they’d come from the men in the van or from Nitro’s hands, or if it mattered at all.
I thought of the ride, the wind, the animal certainty of motion. I thought of the lab and the way its corridors funneled you into only one possible outcome.
I made it through the rest of the morning on autopilot, only the memory of Holloway’s veiled threat keeping my hands from shaking as I navigated the maze of meetings, security audits, and simulated disaster response calls. I gripped every file so hard my nails left crescent moons in the covers. Whenever my reflection showed up in a monitor or a wall of glass, I didn’t recognize it. The woman moving down the corridor had the wrong posture: more animal, less scientist. Like I was bracing for another attack.
The second confrontation came at 13:15. Holloway’s admin pinged my desk with a one-word directive: “Now.”
I barely had time to scrape together my notes before I found myself outside the heavy oak door again, sweat pooling in my collar despite the arctic AC. Inside, Holloway was in the same position as before, but something in the air had curdled. Maybe he’d been rehearsing.
I closed the door behind me, then dropped the file onto his desk. The sound was a slap. I stayed standing.
“You wanted to see me,” I said.
He eyed the folder, then me. “I did. Sit down, please.”
“I’d rather stand.”
He let it go, but only because he was ready to escalate. “Your assistant tells me you’ve made no progress on today’s diagnostics. The Section is already three hours behind target.”
I snorted. “I spent my morning reporting on last night’s attack. Maybe you want to check with Security and see which version you like better.”
He did not appreciate the sarcasm, but that was fine. I wasn’t in the mood to grovel. He laced his fingers together, knuckles whitening, and leaned forward.
“I need to know if you can maintain your focus, Seraphina. If not, I can have you reassigned to something… less critical.”
I leaned in, matching his posture, letting the edge of the desk dig into my palms. “You want to talk about focus? Let’s talk about protocols. Your ‘critical’ response left me dangling in the wind, and if it hadn’t been for a total outsider—someone with no reason to care about national security—I’d be zip-tied in the trunk of a van right now. Or dead.”
He blinked. Once, slow. I wasn’t sure if he was surprised or just recalibrating.
“Your increased security protocols look impressive on paper, Dr. Holloway,” I said, voice sharper than a code review at 3 a.m., “but they weren’t the ones who saved my life when those protocols failed.”
He shifted back, but only a centimeter. “That’s not the point. You introduced an uncontrolled variable into the project. The oversight committee—”
I cut him off, loud enough to echo. “The oversight committee doesn’t have to walk alone at night. I do.”
For a second, the only sound was the hum of the fluorescent lights. Then Holloway’s face went cold, the muscles at his jaw working like he was grinding glass between his teeth.
“I’m warning you, Dr. Dalton. They won’t be as understanding as I am. If this continues, it won’t just be your clearance at risk. It will be your career. Maybe even your freedom.”
He meant it. I could tell.
My jaw locked, the pain in my teeth flaring. I picked up my files, holding them so tight the edges cut into my palm. “Then I hope they send someone competent next time.”
