The drones hover above the trench opening.
Their lenses sweep.
Pause.
Sweep again.
My jaw locks.
The jalshagar coils tight and low inside me, vibrating with violence and possession and the sick, terrible certainty that I will murder anything that comes down here for her.
They don’t descend.
After three long, torturous seconds, they pivot away and accelerate back toward the main fire plume.
I sag against the wall, my knees nearly giving out.
“Oh thank fuck,” I whisper.
Kimberly stirs again, a soft, pained sound slipping out of her.
I slide down the wall into a crouch, keeping her cradled tight against my chest.
“Hey,” I whisper, gentler now. “Hey. I’ve got you. We’re out. You’re safe. Sort of. Safer than you were.”
Her breathing is shallow.
Too shallow.
Her blood is still coming.
My hands are slick and red.
My vision blurs.
This is exposure.
Total.
Irrevocable.
The Alliance knows I exist now.
Oversight will be pulling biometric matches as we speak.
My containment status just went from theoretical to actively catastrophic.
Every safehouse I ever used is now a liability.
Every identity I ever wore just burned to the ground.
Exile doesn’t even begin to cover what I just chose.
I press my forehead against her hair, breathing in smoke and blood and something indefinably hers that makes my chest ache.
“I don’t know what you are to me,” I whisper hoarsely. “I don’t know what the hell just happened inside my body back there. I don’t know what it’s going to cost me.”
My hands shake harder as I tighten my grip on her.
