“And if they’re not suited for anything?” she asks.
I hold her gaze. “Everyone is suited for something.”
“That sounds like justification.”
I feel my irritation spark before I can stop it. I’m not used to so many questions. To being challenged. “It sounds like reality,” I correct.
She shifts again, not away, not forward, just enough that her knee brushes my leg. Accidental. Or not.
My body reacts before my mind does. A sharp awareness. Heat. A tightening low in my gut that has nothing to do with anger. I step back immediately. Too fast.
Her eyes flick down, then back up. She noticed.
I steady myself, reassert distance, reassert control, but stare at her for a beat too long. Something shifts in my chest, not desire, not exactly. Threat. The kind that doesn’t announce itself until it’s almost too late.
“You should be careful,” I say. “You’re testing limits you don’t understand.”
She lifts her chin. “I understand more than you think,” she says. “You’re not cruel because you enjoy it. You’re cruel because it keeps things running.”
That shouldn’t bother me but it does. I lean in without meaning to. Not aggressively. Not consciously. Just enough that her face fills my vision, her mouth inches from mine, her breath warm against my skin.
She doesn’t pull away. Her breath stutters this time, just once.
I register it instantly. I straighten and step back, forcing distance like it’s a physical correction. The space snaps back into place between us.
“That’s enough,” I say.
She watches me, eyes bright now, pulse visible at her throat. “Is it?”
Now she reallyisbeing a pain in the ass.
I don’t answer, because she doesn’t deserve an answer. She’s trying to get under my skin and she sees that she’s succeeded.
Damn her.
I turn and walk away instead, hands clenched, furious with myself for letting it go that far. Behind me, I can feel her watching. Not hopeful. But not afraid. Learning.
And that, more than anything she’s asked so far, tells me this could get worse before it gets better.
25
ARMEN
I takeher through the west-access corridor.
This stretch of the mall was built to move people fast and push them through without thinking. No benches. No storefront glass. No places to stop and look at yourself reflected back. The walls are unfinished concrete scarred by old impact marks and half-scraped signage. A dead escalator sits locked at an angle, frozen mid-command, railings cold to the touch. The lighting is harsher here, with white strips instead of ambient glow, meant to keep bodies moving, not comfortable.
This is not a place for conversation. Which is exactly why I bring her here.
She limps slightly as we walk. Not enough to ask for help. Enough to remind me she must have smashed the hell out of her knee at some point. So, I match her pacewithout commenting on it. If I acknowledge the injury again, it becomes something else. Something closer than I want.
Her wrists are still bound behind her back. I don’t offer an arm. I don’t guide her elbow. She manages on her own, shoulders set, chin level, posture still corrected the way I left it. She remembers.
That should not irritate me but it does.
We stop near the base of the escalator where the corridor narrows. Anyone watching from a distance would see us clearly. Anyone passing would understand, immediately, who holds authority.
I keep my body angled so I’m not blocking her completely. I want the illusion of space, even if there isn’t any.
