I want her.
Neither of us gets what we want without the other – yet.
“You used the term yourself. When you were baiting Seytan. You said she failed to remove Kayla from the Arks’ memories. We’re the Arks. What is Project Marrow?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Valentine snaps.
Bones steps between us before the friction sparks into something irreversible. He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to.
“Enough,” Bones says.
He slams a knife into the table – not at anyone, not a threat, just to break the room’s static. The sound snaps through the warehouse like thunder.
“We are not moving until we have something you can’t misread,” Bones says. “Branson’s tracing. He said hold position before the line cut. So we hold.”
My jaw ticks.
Bones meets my gaze. “But we prepare like we’re leaving in ten minutes.”
Honey nods once.
Valentine exhales through his nose, annoyed but not stupid. “I can run searches. Black-site records east of here. Old procurement channels. Anything that still generates invoices.”
“Do it,” Bones says.
“And we need transport ready,” Honey adds. “Not later. Now.”
Valentine’s eyes flick briefly to his phone, face-down on the desk like a suppressed heartbeat. “It’s being handled.”
Snow swings a leg over a crate and grins. “Lovely. We’re leaving on a bedtime story and a religious vessel. Love that for us.”
Hatchet’s head turns just enough that the joke dies mid-breath.
Snow’s grin thins. He looks away first.
Good.
Hours pass like something viscous.
No one sleeps. Not properly. Bodies sag. Minds grind. The warehouse becomes smaller, as if the walls are inching in on our ribs.
Valentine disappears into the adjoining office and starts making calls in a voice designed to soothe bureaucracy. He comes back with a list and a look in his eyes that says he’s walking a knife edge.
Bones maps the floor with pacing, stops, paces again. Always listening for the phone.
Honey counts supplies we don’t officially have. Ghost tries to anchor himself in the present by naming objects: crate, light, door, breath. Hatchet checks straps, latches, the chain on the shutter, the weakness in the back door hinge. Methodical. Silent.
Snow…Snow watches.
Not the room. Not us.
The door.
Over and over.
Like he’s waiting for a cue.
I file it away.
