Bad idea. Very bad fucking idea.
“So we just sit here?” Her voice echoes slightly in the tunnel. “For six hours? In this freezing pipe?”
“Yes.”
“That’s your whole plan? Hide and wait?”
“Alive is better than dead.”
She pulls her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. The position makes her look smaller, but also does interesting things to her already impressive cleavage. Voluptuous. That’s the word. Full breasts that would overflow my hands, hips made for gripping.
Professional distance. Right.
“I need answers,” she says, because of course she does. “What exactly is Phoenix? Is this connected to what happened to Sarah, David, and Lisa?”
The questions pour out rapid-fire. Typical academic—needs to understand, analyze, categorize every piece of information. Can’t just sit quietly and wait for extraction.
“Phoenix is a military AI targeting system. Supposedly shut down. Actually privatized. Now it kills anyone it considers a threat.”
“What counts as a threat?” She pauses, eyes closing briefly, then corrects herself. “Who does it count as a threat?”
Smart woman. Even terrified, she’s thinking.
“Anyone investigating it.”
“Privatized by whom?”
“Unknown.”
“Unknown? That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer.”
Her frustration radiates across the small space between us. She shifts again, and her shoulder bumps mine. Warm. Soft. Dangerous.
“I’m not some helpless victim you need to manage,” she says, fire flashing in those green eyes. “I’m aformer DoD encryption specialist with top secret clearance. I can handle the truth.”
The DoD background explains the sharp questions. The rapid threat assessment. Also explains why Phoenix wants her dead—she has the skills to decode their communications.
“The truth is, we don’t know who controls Phoenix. Could be defense contractors. Shadow government. Private military. The system covers its tracks.”
“But you’re investigating it.”
“No. I’m protecting someone Phoenix wants dead. Big difference.”
“What do you mean by big difference?”
“My job is keeping you alive. You stay alive by doing what I say when I say it. And keeping your mouth shut when I tell you to.”
Her jaw clenches. “Are you always this bossy?”
“Yes.”
“You’re an ass.”
“You’re alive.”
She huffs out a breath that might be frustration or amusement. Hard to tell in the dark. “We’re not here to be friends, I get it. But we’re stuck in this pipe for the foreseeable future. We might as well talk.”
