"He was—" He stops. His jaw moves. "I've managed volatile situations before. I've been in rooms where things went sideways. But the speed of it. The—" He stops again. "I had half a second before you were between us."
"I know."
"You took the impact meant for me."
"The impact wasn't meant for anyone," I say. "He wasn't seeing clearly. He was seeing threat and he went for it and I got in the way." I look at him. "That's different from it being meant for you."
He looks at me. Something settles in his face.
He nods.
At some point he moves from the chair to the bed. Not asked — decided. He sits beside me and I put my head on his shoulder and he puts his arm carefully around my ribs, his hand finding the position that avoids the worst of it. His breathing slows. Mine does too.
The loop is still running. Sven's head on the floor. RJ's yellow eyes.Sorry sorry.But it's quieter now, the way things get quieter when you're not carrying them alone.
I fall asleep against his shoulder.
I don't remember him leaving.
***
Lockdown is announced at seven the next morning.
Not in those words — the facility doesn't use that word, too close to what this place already is. What Gavin says, escorting me personally to breakfast in Sven's absence, is:adjusted movement parameters, effective immediately, pending review of yesterday's incident.Movement restricted to designated areas. No unsupervised outdoor access. Meals taken in supervised groups.
He doesn't say RJ's name. He doesn't need to.
The dining hall has the quiet of a space where everyone is doing the same calculation — working out what this means, how long it lasts, whether the thing that happened yesterday changes what this place is going to be. I get my tray and find a table and Leo slides in across from me forty seconds later.
He looks at my face. Then at the arm I'm still holding tightly to my side.
"Dalton was with you last night," he says. Not a question.
"Yes."
He nods. His hand finds mine under the table and squeezes once.
"Good," he says. Then he picks up his fork and starts in on his breakfast and doesn't make anything more of it, which is the most Leo thing he's done all week. No questions. No commentary. Just the hand squeeze and thegoodand then eggs, because Leo understands sometimes the most useful thing you can do is be beside someone without making it a thing.
We eat. I watch the room.
Gavin is at the staff table, managing, documenting, the facility's institutional machinery running without Sven to run it, which means Gavin is everywhere Sven usually is and visibly stretched across both jobs. He's on his radio twice before I've finished my eggs.
Which is why he doesn't see Dalton leave.
I do.
Dalton is at the end of the staff table with a coffee he's barely touched, and somewhere between one bite and the next he puts the coffee down and stands and walks out without looking at anyone. Fast. Purposeful. The walk of a man who has somewhere to be and has decided now is when he goes there.
I watch the door close behind him.
Gavin doesn't look up from his radio.
Leo, beside me, is talking about something — the new movement restrictions, something wry about institutional responses to institutional failures. I'm listening with one ear. The other is on the door Dalton just went through.
"Alex," Leo says.
"I heard you."
