JORDAN
Clint looks like a man who’s been running on caffeine, fear, and sheer stubbornness—and just realized stubbornness doesn’t stop bullets.
He comes through the service entrance under Kaijen escort with his collar pulled up and his eyes scanning everything like the walls might whisper. Gur’s industrial air clings to him—diesel, damp metal, the sour tang of nerves. His hair is a mess. His jaw is unshaven. He’s carrying a small bag like it’s all the life he’s allowed to keep.
The Kaijen guards peel off without a word, leaving him standing there in a corridor that smells like bleach fighting old smoke.
I step forward before he can talk himself into bolting.
“Clint,” I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel.
His face cracks—relief first, then something darker. He swallows hard like he’s forcing emotion down his throat with both hands.
“Jordan,” he says. “Holy hell.”
I give him a crooked smile. “Welcome to the worst vacation destination in the sector.”
He tries to laugh. It fails halfway. “Yeah. Cute.”
His eyes flick past me, taking in the security layers—the cameras that aren’t cameras, the guards who don’t look armed but definitely are, the subtle way the air pressure shifts when a door seals behind him.
“You’re really doing this,” he murmurs.
“I’m really doing this,” I confirm.
Clint’s gaze locks onto mine. “They’re going to call you a terrorist forever.”
I shrug, but it’s sharp. “They already did.”
He exhales. “Right.”
We stand there for a second, two people holding the same grief-shaped history, and it hits me—harder than it should—that he actually came. He didn’t stay behind his badge. He didn’t cling to the institution like a life raft.
He chose me.
Or maybe he chose the truth.
Either way, it costs.
I tilt my head toward the inner corridor. “Come on. You look like you need water and a chair and possibly a therapist.”
Clint walks beside me, and his voice drops low. “Jordan… IHC intel is split.”
My stomach tightens. “Split how?”
He glances around as if the walls might be listening. Then he says, quietly, “There’s a faction that wants you contained permanently.”
The words land like ice water poured down my spine.
“Contained,” I repeat.
Clint’s mouth twists. “Yeah.”
“Permanently,” I echo, because my brain is trying to force it into something softer.
Clint doesn’t soften. “They’re using that phrase on purpose.”
I stop walking.
