Morgan’s hands had gone cold against her thighs.
The door opened behind her.
“The algorithm’s running faster now.” Lincoln’s voice, steady and practical. “I cleared some cache that was—” He stopped. “Morgan?”
She forced her expression into something neutral. Turned back to her workstation with hands she willed not to shake.
“Ready to continue,” she said.
If he noticed her stillness, the careful way she was holding herself together, he didn’t comment. He just settled back into his chair and pulled up the next database.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
Morgan closed her eyes. Drew in a breath that caught somewhere behind her ribs.
“ROMEO-TWO-VICTOR,” she began. “DELTA-EIGHT-PAPA. OSCAR-FIVE-WHISKEY.”
The data flowed. The gaps stayed hidden. But the fear she’d been outrunning crept a little closer.
The hours blurred together after that.
More coordinates. More names without faces. More military codes that meant nothing to her and everything to someone. The headache had become a constant now, a pressure behind her eyes that throbbed with every recitation. Her hand kept drifting to her temple. She’d force it back to her lap, glance at Lincoln, then find it there again thirty seconds later.
“Morgan.”
She didn’t hear him. She was deep in a string of account numbers from the Treasury breach, the digits spilling out of her in automatic sequence.
“Morgan.”
His voice finally cut through. She blinked, looked up, and found him watching her with an expression she hadn’t seen before. Not just concerned.Worried. A tension around his eyes that looked almost like fear.
Two days ago, he kissed me at the bottom of a cliff. Now he’s watching me fall apart, and I can’t even tell him why.
“What?”
“You said the same number twice. You’ve never done that before.”
She had no memory of it. The realization landed like a physical blow.
“I’m fine. I just need—” She reached for her water glass and remembered it was empty. “More data. Let’s keep going with the next batch.”
“You’ve been at this for ten hours. We should stop for tonight.”
“I can keep going.”
“You repeated a number. You’ve never done that.” He turned his chair to face her fully. “Your hands have been shaking for the last hour. You keep touching your temple when you think I’m not looking. And your voice is so hoarse, I can barely understand the information. You’re exhausted.”
“The data doesn’t care if I’m tired.”
“No. But I do.”
The words landed harder than she expected. She opened her mouth to argue, to insist she was fine, to push through the way she’d been pushing through all day today and yesterday—but Lincoln was already standing, already positioning himself between her and the workstation.
“Tomorrow,” he said. Not a suggestion. “The data will still be there. You won’t be if you keep this up.”
She didn’t have the energy left to fight him. That was the truth of it. The resistance drained out of her all at once, leaving her hollow and shaking in its absence.
“Okay,” she heard herself say. “Okay. Tomorrow, then.”
