“What’s that?” He doesn’t wait. He steps in, quick, and snatches.
I lunge, chain stopping me a half-second too soon. The cuff bites bone. I swallow my protest, unwilling to let him hear my pain.
He holds the chip up between two fingers, reading it like a label. He grins, all small teeth. “Oh, sweetheart. This won’t do you any good. You can’t buy your freedom here.”
He flicks it toward the far corner. It skitters across the steel, loops once, and disappears against the wall’s edge.
He wants me to make a scene. He wants me to act like I’ve got nowhere to go and nothing to do except whathewants. I keep my eyes on his instead and give him nothing.
“Eat,” he says. “Keep your strength up. You’ll need it.”
He lets the threat hang and leaves. The locks replay the same ugly music as they clang into place.
I’m moving before the last one settles.
The chain checks me with an ugly little jerk, but I flatten out, cheek to floor, and stretch my fingers. I extend until my ribs protest, turn my hand sideways, and feel with my fingertips for the thin little circle I know as well as my own pulse.
Nothing. I push impossibly further.
My shoulder scrapes steel. I exhale to get another half-inch of reach. The cuff bites against my skin again. A brush—smooth rim, then the milled edge. My fingers close, lose it, close again, and this time hold.
I drag it to me and roll onto my back, breath coming faster than I want it to. I sit up, tuck the chip deep into my pocket, then rethink and tuck it inside my bra, under the seam, where fingers won’t go without warning. The screw stays in the pocket.
The sandwich waits. The thought of food makes me nauseous, but I peel back the plastic and force myself to eat half. I drink all the water and hold the cup to catch the drip from the tap.
When the shaking returns, I set the cup down, put my shoulders to the wall again, and square my head.
Keep it together.
Breathe.
Count.
Remember who I am and who the Titans are, the power they have. They will come.
Conrad is building a plan. Atticus is building a trail. Maverick is building pressure. Storm…Storm is simply building.
My job is simple. Stay alive long enough to meet them halfway.
4
Atticus
In a good encryption algorithm,changing even one single bit of input completely changes half of the output. If you flip one microscopic zero to a one, the result explodes into something that looks totally unrelated. It’s called an avalanche effect.
My life without Phoenix is everything that follows the avalanche effect.
The idea that one tiny mistake in my code, one potentially fucked up zero or one is going to make it impossible to find her…it’s the most terrified I’ve ever been in my entire life.
I can’t breathe right. There’s a constant ache behind my eyes. I haven’t been able to force anything into my stomach without throwing it right back up, so I’m just not eating.
One wrong digit in this search string, and every packet of data, every camera feed…all of it might as well vanish into thin air.
I’ve been locked in my office since the moment I learned Phoenix was taken.
I’ve always prided myself on control. Always maintaining the fiction of appearing like I had it all together, even if everything was falling apart on the inside. Neat appearance, regulated passions…I held everything exactly as I wanted it.
Untilher.
