Delilah’s quarters are closer than she knows. Closer than anyone knows. I told myself it was coincidence when the room opened up, told myself it was logistics, told myself I wasn’t factoring in the nightmares I knew she’d be having even if she never said a word about them. Told myself a lot of things, really. All of them bullshit.
I knock once. Sharp. Urgent.
The door opens and she’s there, wrapped in a towel, hair damp and loose around her shoulders. For half a second, my brain registers it—and then discards it entirely. There’s no space for that right now. No room for anything but the spike of fear that hits when I see her standing there unguarded and exposed in ways she shouldn’t be. Damp skin. Bare shoulders. Collarbone slick with water. The faint marks I know too well ghosting pale beneath the steam still clinging to the room behind her.
“Jon?” she snaps. “What the hell—”
“I need your phone,” I say, already stepping inside.
“What?” She slams the door shut behind me. “Are you serious right now? You can’t just—”
“Delilah,” I cut in, sharper than I want, but I don’t slow down. “I don’t have time to explain. I need your phone. Now.”
She glares at me like she might throw it at my head, but she does it—snatches it off the desk and shoves it into my hand hard enough to make a point. “You better start talking.”
I don’t answer. I plug it into my laptop and start tearing through it, my pulse pounding louder with every confirmation that lights up the screen. Her room still smells like steam and coconut shampoo and the faint smoke that clings to me. The towel shifts when she folds her arms across her chest, defensive and cold and very aware of the fact that I barged in while she was half dressed. I should care more about that. I do care. Just not more than this.
There it is.
Same architecture. Same buried signatures. Same invisible teeth sunk deep into the system.
“Son of a bitch,” I breathe.
“What?” she demands. “What is it?”
I don’t look at her yet. I can’t. I’m too busy dismantling, isolating, burning the damn thing down to the roots. Code scrolls fast across the screen, ugly and familiar, each buried file making me want to punch through concrete. “Mikhail’s been in our pockets,” I say, words spilling faster now, anger and adrenaline tangling together. “Not just yours. Not just mine. Phones. Tablets. Anything personal. He’s been watching movements, mapping patterns. This is how he knows who to grab and when. This is how he’s always been two steps ahead.”
Her silence is loud. It fills the room in a way shouting wouldn’t.
“I’m sending out a base-wide alert,” I continue, already typing. “Total electronic wipe. Everything personal goes dark until further notice. No exceptions.”
“And the party?” she asks quietly.
That’s when I finally look up.
She’s pulled the towel tighter around herself, shoulders drawn in, chin lifted like she’s bracing for impact. The sight of her like that—bare, guarded, marked—hits me harder than I expect. Now that I’m not in motion, my eyes catch on the faint scars I know too well, pale lines against skin that should never have been touched the way it was. The ones I didn’t stop. The ones someone else put there while I was still trying to catch up.
My chest tightens.
I look away before she can see it on my face.
“I was trying to figure out how to cancel without raising alarms,” I admit. “But now…”
Now it’s obvious. Now it’s unbearable. Now every smiling veteran and polished banquet table looks like a sniper perch in nicer clothes.
“You’re exposed,” I say quietly. “More than anyone.”
She shifts, defensive and angry and hurt all at once. “So what, I just disappear again?”
“No,” I say immediately. Too fast. Too firm. “Not like that.”
The room feels smaller suddenly. Too close. Too charged. Steam still lingers in the air from her shower, making the whole space feel warmer than it should. My laptop hums softly on the desk between us. Somewhere down the hall, boots pass and fade.
I catch her eyes again, really look at her this time, and for a split second the wordsyou’re still beautifulare right there, burning the back of my throat. They don’t come out. They don’t deserve to—not after everything she’s been through, not when beauty feels like the wrong language entirely. Not when what Ireally mean isyou’re still hereandthat should be enoughandit isn’t.
She notices my stare anyway. Her arms tighten around herself.
“I’m fine,” she says, even as her voice wavers. “You don’t get to look at me like that.”
