I tilt my head back over my shoulder. “Maybe I’m just admiring the interface.”
He says nothing.
No lecture. No threat. No command to return to my assigned zone.
He just watches me. Like I’m the one blinking red now.
The third time, I stop pretending.
I face him across the small room. No props. No bait.
Just me.
Just him.
“If they tell you to hand me over,” I say, voice flat, “do you?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
His eyes narrow—almost imperceptibly—but theystayon me. Unflinching. Unreadable.
The pause stretches so long I think he won’t reply at all.
“They already have,” he says.
I go still.
“I haven’t.”
It feels like the floor shifts beneath me.
I stare at him, lips parted, chest tight.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.
It’s not bravado. It’s not even defiance.
It’s truth.
Naked and raw and carved from something thatdoesn’t lie.
My throat clicks as I swallow. I can’t think of what to say. My brain is a haze of static and heat andhim.
I should move.
I don’t.
That night, the lights die.
No warning. No alert.
Just a suddenwhumpof silence as the station groans and everything dims. A second later, the emergency flood comes on—low and red and pulsing like a heartbeat.
I sit bolt upright.
He’s already moving. Between me and the door.
His posture shifts, weight forward. Protective.
