My stomach tightens.Savage’s reply is instant.“I mean your infrastructure.”
“You should just hand her over,” the voice says.“You can’t win this fight.She’s just a piece of ass.”
Savage’s jaw tightens.“You should stop speaking.”
The line goes dead and silence stretches.
I step forward.“They know it’s me.”
“Yes,” Savage replies.
“They’ll try to isolate me.”
“Yes.”
“And they’ll fail,” I add.
He meets my gaze.“Because you’re not isolated.”
“No,” I say.“I’m embedded.”That’s the truth now.
****
When the night deepensand the compound settles into guarded quiet, Savage finds me on the roof again.
“You handled that well,” he says.
“I didn’t handle it,” I reply.“I simply didn’t react.I knew it was coming.”
He leans against the railing beside me.“Same thing.”
“No,” I correct.“Handling is reactive.Anticipation is control.”
He considers that.“You’ve done this before.”
“Different war,” I admit.“Same mistakes.”
We stand in silence, city lights pulsing below.Both of us know that today wasn’t even a scratch on the surface of what is to come.There will be more, and worse, in the near future.
“They’ll escalate sideways again,” I say.“But not with blood this time.”
He nods.“They’ll try to fracture loyalty.”
“Yes.”
“And you?”he asks.
“I’ll do my best to make that hard for them to accomplish.”
He turns to look at me fully.“How do you plan on doing that?”
I smile without humor.“By staying visible, calm, and unmoved.”
“That puts you in the line of sight.”He frowns, unhappy with the idea.
“I’ve been there since I walked through the gate.Hell, I was there before I even drove up here.”
He exhales slowly.“You don’t scare easy.”
