I stare at the wall.
I’m a ghost hunting a machine.
But right now, the only thing that matters is the woman pressing her spine against mine.
And the terrifying realization that I would burn the world down to keep her warm.
NINE
“The Sanctuary”
HALO
The waiting isthe hardest part.
In the field, waiting is active. You scan. You calculate. You adjust your scope.
Here, in the gilded cage of Suite 514, waiting is suffocating.
We have been holed up for twenty-four hours. The heavy drapes are drawn, turning the room into a timeless twilight. The air is recycled, cool, and smells of the room service burgers we ate three hours ago.
Cassie is pacing.
She’s been doing it for twenty minutes.
Every pass leaves something behind—heat, motion, awareness—like she’s sandblasting me down by degrees.
Bed to window. Window to desk. Six steps. Turn. Six steps. Turn.
It scrapes at me. The room is too small, the air too warm, the hours stacked too tight. Twenty-four hours boxed in with nowhere to burn off the edge. No run. No mission. No release.
Just her.
Gray sweatpants. Black T-shirt. Bare feet. Her hair loose, catching the lamplight like it’s taunting me—every turn anotherreminder that I’m human under the armor, no matter how hard I lock it down.
I sit in the armchair, stripping and reassembling my weapon for the third time. The metal clicks are steady. Controlled. The only thing in this room that listens when I tell it what to do.
“You’re going to wear the finish off that slide,” she says.
“Maintenance is discipline,” I answer, not looking up. “And you’re going to wear a hole in that carpet.”
She stops directly in front of me. The pacing ends. The pressure spikes.
She crouches. Eye level. Too close. Close enough that the space between us disappears, and my body reacts before my mind can shut it down.
“It’s a distraction,” she says. “You’re bored.”
“I’m alert.”
“You’re trapped,” she says softly. “Just like me.”
Her fingers brush the back of my hand, right over the scar from Bogotá.
The contact is light.
The effect is not.
Something in my chest tightens—sharp, sudden—like a cable pulled too far. I’ve been holding this line for a day straight, every instinct screaming to move, to act, to do something with the heat crawling under my skin.
