“This place doesn’t belong to them. It doesn’t belong to the Nine. It doesn’t even belong to us.”
Another pause. I force my hands to still.
“It belongs to the people who bled for it. Kimberly Rhee is one of them. You touch her, you touch me. You touch me, you earn the worst death your godless tech can deliver.”
I finish the message. Encrypt it. Program the relay.
Twelve dead-drops, across twelve sectors, timed for automatic release if I don’t make my extraction check-in within the next seventy-two hours.
No melodrama.
Just contingency.
Just truth.
When I finish, I sit against the far wall of the node chamber. My hands fall into my lap. My claws retract. The cold sinks in deep.
I don’t expect to walk away from this.
And I’m okay with that.
Except—
The door hisses open.
I know that scent before she speaks. Cinnamon and gun oil. Anger barely leashed.
“Turon Viis, what thefuckhave you done.”
Kim stands in the doorway like the god of war found new skin. Her eyes are glass and fire, locked on the console, on the traps, on the mess I’ve made out of goodbye.
I don’t stand.
I don’t lie.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Her voice shakes. “You’re sending a death signal. You’re booby-trapping corridors. You’re prepping for a one-man martyr act and youdidn’t tell me?”
“I told you what mattered.”
“No. You told me what mattered toyou.”
She stalks forward, boots crunching over fractured tile.
“I know you think this is noble. That sacrificing yourself so I can walk away is some kind of grand romantic gesture?—”
“It’s not romantic,” I cut in. “It’s tactical.”
She stops in front of me, hands balled into fists. “You arrogant, stubborn bastard. You really think I’ll let you do this alone?”
“This isn’t about letting,” I say, standing slowly. “This is about surviving.”
“Then why the fuck do you look like you’re already dead?”
I don’t answer.
She shoves me. Hard.
