“I can try.”
She couldn’t.
Her legs buckled on the second step, and he caught her before she hit the floor. He didn’t comment on the failure. Just lifted her again, arms steady, and carried her up a flight of stairs she barely registered.
The guest room was at the end of a hallway. He pushed the door open with his shoulder and carried her inside. It was a normal room: a bed, a window, a door.
Her eyes stayed on the door.
“The bathroom is through there.” He gestured to another door. “Towels in the cabinet if you want to shower. I don’t really have any female clothes, but I can get something appropriate tomorrow.”
Morgan didn’t respond. She was still looking at the door.
“Mercury?”
Evidently, he wasn’t ready to use her real name yet either.
She crossed the room on legs that wobbled but held. Wrapped her fingers around the handle. Pulled it toward her, pushed it away, pulled it toward her again.
It opened. Both directions.
“The door isn’t locked.” His voice had that blunt quality she remembered from their messages—stating facts without softening them, without anticipating how they might land. “You can leave whenever you want. The house is alarmed for outside intrusion, not inside movement. If you want to walk around at three in the morning, nothing will stop you.”
Morgan’s hand was still on the handle. She opened the door again. Closed it. Opened it.
“I can install a lock on the inside,” he continued. “Ifthat would make you feel safer. One that only you can control.”
Her throat tightened. She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she just nodded.
“I’ll do it tomorrow.” He shifted his weight, and she caught something uncertain in the movement—awkwardness, maybe, or discomfort. “You should rest. The electrolyte solution Annie wants you to drink is on the nightstand. Annie left crackers too.”
He was already moving toward the door when she found her voice.
“Binary.”
He stopped.
“Thank you.” The words felt inadequate. Stupid. How did you thank someone for pulling you out of hell? “For coming. For—” She gestured vaguely at the room, at the door she could open, at all of it.
“You sent coordinates. I received them.” He paused. “I’m glad I saw it in time.”
“Me too,” she whispered. There was so much more she knew she should say, but she was just so tired.
“Get some sleep,” he said. “Tomorrow, we can talk about what happens next.”
Then he was gone.
Morgan stood in the middle of the guest room and listened to his footsteps fade down the hallway. The house settled around her—small sounds, mechanical sounds, the hum of electronics she couldn’t identify. Everything hummed here. Everything was alive with systems and sensors and surveillance.
She walked to the bed. She touched the blankets—soft, impossibly soft—and thought about climbing beneath them. Surrounding herself with warmth, blocking out the world.
She couldn’t do it.
Too much like the box. Too enclosed. Too confined.
Instead, she lay down on top of the covers, fully clothed, and stared at the ceiling. Her arms throbbed beneath their fresh bandages. Her stomach ached with emptiness she was too tired to address. Her mind?—
Her mind wouldn’t stop.
