Mac’s eyes narrowed further. “What are you saying.”
“I think they can open passages,” Melvin said.
Mac didn’t speak. His face didn’t change much, but Melvin saw the wolf in him stir.
“And I think when they talked about moving Reynolds and granting leave, they meant it literally.”
Melvin’s mouth went dry. “I’m sure of what I felt,” he said. “The room didn’t just close. Something else moved.”
Mac’s eyes sharpened. “Then we need to know what they intend before they intend it.”
Melvin nodded. “Yes.”
They stood in the corridor a beat longer than they should have, two officers in a place that expected clean edges. Melvin felt the laminated card in his chest pocket like a small weight. A tether.
Mac’s gaze dropped for a fraction to Melvin’s pocket, as if he felt it too. When his eyes lifted again, there was something tight in them that wasn’t only worry.
“We go stateside,” Mac said, “and we’re not just on leave.”
Melvin’s voice came low. “We’re in their terrain.”
Mac nodded once. “Then we move like it.”
They returned to Reynolds’ room with neutral faces, but Melvin felt the shift under his skin. The panther stayed low and alert, hunted not by teeth, but by policy.
Reynolds was awake again when they came back in, eyes clearer but still strained. He watched them as if he could read the weight in their posture. “They’re gonna take me,” he said, not as a question.
Melvin stopped beside the bed. “They’re going to relocate you,” he corrected gently. “And yes. They’re going to take you.”
Reynolds swallowed. “Do I get a say?”
Mac answered before Melvin could. “You get a say in whether you survive what they teach you,” he said. “You get a say in whether you keep yourself. That’s not nothing.”
Reynolds stared at him. “That’s not the same.”
“No,” Mac said evenly. “It isn’t.”
Melvin watched Reynolds’ hands twitch once against the straps, then still. The fear was there, but so was discipline. Reynolds had always been teachable. That was why Melvin trusted him as point.
“What do I do,” Reynolds whispered.
Melvin leaned in, voice steady. “You do what you’ve always done,” he said. “You follow structure until your body becomes structure again. You breathe. You listen. You learn the difference between impulse and choice.”
Reynolds’ eyes flicked to Melvin’s face. “And you’re gonna leave?”
Melvin didn’t flinch. “If they order it,” he said. “Yes.”
Reynolds’ throat bobbed. “And if I lose it while you’re gone?”
Mac’s hand settled on the bedrail, careful. “Then you fight to hold,” he said. “And you remember you did it once already. You held while the room was watched. That matters.”
Reynolds stared at him, breathing shallow. Then, slowly, he nodded.
The corridor outside filled with footsteps again, more medics, more soldiers, more ordinary life. Melvin felt the normal world closing around them like a net. If the Stewards were going to move Reynolds, it would happen soon, before the Army asked too many questions.
And when it happened, Melvin suspected it wouldn’t involve a flight manifest.
It would involve a circle.
