The elevator swayed, and she flinched—a quick tightening of her shoulders, but he caught it. Of course he caught it. He’d been watching her too closely not to.
No system was worth that.
No secret was worth that.
He leaned his head against the wall, the cool veneer a stark contrast to the heat building under his skin—part frustration, part determination, part something else he wasn’t ready to name.
Closing his eyes, he let the physical world dissolve into a lattice of light and code. The familiar crackle of energy washed over him as he slipped into another layer of reality, his consciousness expanding beyond flesh and bone into something vast and electric.
Rivers of data flowed by like neon streams, pulsing with information in colors that didn’t exist in the ordinary spectrum. Blues that sang, reds that whispered secrets, greens that hummed with potential. The rhythmic beat of packet transfers lured him further in, a siren song only he heard.
He slipped into the network, sliding past its defenses like smoke through a crack. This was his element. Here, he was sharp. Certain. The building opened beneath his awareness—lines of power unfolding in clean, luminous threads. Clarity hit instantly. The elevators were frozen. The system wasn’t responding. But the power was still live.
Someone had locked it. His digital presence recoiled at the discovery.
Sabotage. Not mechanical failure. Someone shut the controller down intentionally.
The knowledge sent a cold spike of anger through him, even in this formless state. Someone trapped them—trappedher—on purpose. Grim satisfaction welled up, followed by resolve. Whoever did it hadn’t accounted forhim.
The why could wait. Right now, he had work to do.
David sank deeper, tearing through encryption like wet tissue. Firewalls crumbled at his touch, security protocols parting before him like water around a blade. No time to sift through event logs now—he could do that later, when he had time to trace back every digital fingerprint and find out who dared to weaponize his hotel’s infrastructure. Now? Reactivate systems, bring Lena peace.
He followed the disruption to its source, splitting his focus without hesitation. Threads of control snapped back into place under his direction. Systems that had stalled now responded. Power shifted where it needed to go. One by one, the locks opened.
Movement tickled through the floor beneath his feet, vibrating up through his body and pulling him back toward physicality.
He withdrew from the system with practiced precision. Re-entry was the hard part. It always took a second for his pulse to remember which world he was in.
Reality snapped back in layers—color, sound, gravity. His body felt too tight, too small, after the endless sprawl of the network. He blinked, dragging his vision back into focus. The elevator’s emergency lights felt dim, washed-out.
Lena was staring at him. Brows drawn tight. Turquoise eyes clear now—confusion cutting through the exhaustion that had pinned her moments ago. Her cheek still rested against her knee, but her attention was sharp. Locked on him.
How long had she been watching?
He swallowed. He must have gone too deep. Too still. When he dropped into the network, his body shut down. Breath slowed. Pulse quieted. Eyes lost focus.
The first time Nick had seen it, he’d thought David had coded himself into cardiac arrest.
He pushed to his feet, too fast. The world tilted—just a fraction. His muscles protested after sitting motionless.
He forced a grin. “We’re back in business.” His voice sounded steady. Good. “I set ours to restore last,” he added, offering her a hand. “That means the others are already running. Everyone else should be fine.”
Her skin was cold, damp with nerves, and delicate against his palm in a way that made him acutely aware of every point of contact. She lingered for half a second longer than necessary before standing, using his grip to pull herself up. Her laugh sounded shaky, almost like it had escaped by accident—too raw, too real to be the polished version she usually deployed.
“Thank god, I don’t think I could have taken much more of that.” Her voice broke in places as she tried to patch it with breath and sarcasm, her armor not quite fitting right yet. She gestured at the ceiling, where the ancient ventilation fan continued its ominous rattling. “That fan sounds like the whisper of the Grim Reaper.”
The elevator slid to a smooth stop, metal sliding against metal as the doors opened with a gentle chime. Crisp air wafted in from the hallway, carrying with it the faint scent of the lavender room spray the housekeeping staff used. The contrast with the stale elevator air was immediate and visceral.
Lena didn’t so much step out as launch herself; her heels clicked on the tile with an uneven rhythm, one foot hitching as if her legs didn’t quite remember how to work. She inhaled like itwas her first real breath in an hour, her entire chest expanding with it.
Her shaky exhale sounded like it took more than fear with it—it took memories—of being trapped, of being helpless, of waiting for someone else to show up and not knowing if they would. He recognized that kind of exhale. He’d made it himself a time or two back when his abilities seemed terrifying instead of useful.
David lingered a beat longer inside the elevator, one hand braced against the wall as he shored up his shaky knees. She didn’t look back, didn’t acknowledge him as she put distance between herself and the machine that had held her captive.
She hadn’t thanked him, not that he expected it. Her panic had been real, visceral. And she’d come back from it—stood up straight, took control again. That resilience… it wasn’t new. He’d caught glimpses of it before, that core of steel under the professional smile and quick wit.
He remembered the first time he’d seen that look—weeks ago. Maybe three. Time blurred when you lived half your life in code.
