I slide the spike into the access port. The lights along the corridor flicker, then dim—just enough for me to know the sensor grid has gone passive. I smirk.
“Go.”
We move in tandem now.
No more me trailing him like some reluctant sidekick. I’m leading. Tatek moves like he’s ready to tear apart anything that gets between us and freedom, but he doesn’t question me. Not once. Not when I reroute us through an abandoned sleep block. Not when I halt at a junction that looks clear butfeelswrong.
I can feel him behind me—heat, presence, the low, steady hum of a body prepared for war—and it’s not pressure. It’s certainty.
The corridor tilts left into a sealed audit hall. I tap a command into my wristpad, fingers flying. The code hits a snag, then slides through.
We’re in.
Doors hiss open.
Tatek’s breath is right behind me.
“I’ve seen agents choke on less complicated locks,” he says.
I glance back. “That’s because agents think rules are holy.”
“And you?”
“I think rules are suggestions with bad social skills.”
He laughs, quiet but real.
And something inside me stretches. Warms.
We slip into the vault. The air is cooler here, thinner. Recycled too many times without replacement. The silence isn’t just quiet—it’s deliberate. Designed to remind you this is where secrets come to sleep.
I move fast.
I know the layout—two terminals near the back, one control panel wired directly into the surveillance ring. If I can loop the secondary feed for forty-five seconds, we’ll have a gap long enough to drop down into the waste processing line. Crude. Dangerous. But it bypasses three whole sectors of surveillance and dumps us two decks from the drone bay.
I plug in.
Tatek paces, scanning the shadows.
As my fingers fly, I feel it creeping back in.
Not fear.
Memory.
Of last night.
Of his mouth against my shoulder. His breath on my skin. The way he said my name like it hurt. Like he was afraid of what it meant and still couldn’t stop.
It wasn’t just sex.
It wasn’t just tension finally boiling over.
It was a door opening.
I didn’t want it to.
I thought I’d closed those doors forever.
