She’s the one who breaks the silence. “You didn’t answer my question.”
I don’t pretend to know which one.
“How many leave?” she asks. Not loud. Not confrontational. Just direct.
I watch her face while I answer. I’ve learned to do that. People tell you more with their reactions than their words. “Very few. None, really.”
She absorbs it. A small tightening at the corner of her mouth. Her breathing slows instead of catching.
“And the rest?”
I don’t answer immediately. I let the hum of the generators fill the space between us. Let her feel what silence sounds like in a place like this.
“They stay,” I say finally.
She nods once. Not in acceptance. In confirmation.
“So when I signed the contract,” she says carefully, “that wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was an omission that I’m here… forever.”
“Language is precise,” I reply. “Interpretation is optional.”
Her eyes sharpen. “That’s a neat way to avoid responsibility.”
“It’s an accurate one.”
She shifts her weight. Her knee protests. I see it even though she doesn’t vocalize it. The restraint forces her to adjust awkwardly, shoulders tightening again despite herself.
“You feel the city deserved this,” she says suddenly.
The words land wrong. Not because they’re accusatory. Because they’re familiar.
I still don’t touch her. I don’t move closer. But something in me tightens all the same. “What city?”
She tilts her head, studying me. “The one before. The one that fell. Rothwell? Remember?” she says like a smartass.
Of course I fucking remember. But I say nothing.
“My father used to say collapse wasn’t an accident,” she continues. “That systems disintegrate long before they fall. That pretending otherwise just lets the damage spread.”
There it is. The line she didn’t know she was crossing. My hand moves before I decide to let it. I grab her wrist. Harder than I intend. Tight enough that I feel bone under skin. Her breath snaps in, sharp and startled, and she stumbles a half step toward me before she catches herself.
The contact is immediate. Electric. Wrong. I tightenmy grip without meaning to. Not to hurt her. To stop her. To stop myself.
Her pulse hammers under my thumb. Fast. Alive. Defiant. She doesn’t cry out. She doesn’t plead. She looks up at me, eyes wide but clear, and in that second, I see it, not in her face but in the way she holds herself when confronted.
The belief that systems can be argued with. The belief that truth should matter. The belief that restraint and humanity are proof of decency.
I release her abruptly. Too abruptly.
She stumbles back, catching herself against the cold metal of the escalator rail. I step away at the same time, like the contact burned us both.
My hand curls into a fist at my side. I don’t apologize. I don’t explain. I’m furious—with her, yes, but mostly with myself.
“Talk of him doesn’t belong here,” I say, voice controlled through sheer will.
“Who? My father?” she asks.
“Yes.”
