I let the fear run one lap. Then I set it beside two other facts on a shelf: the blonde girl’s tattoo, and the way Cap had said good without meaning luck. All three were fuel.
“Hey,” I whispered, because I needed one certain thing. “If they,”
“No,” he said, before I could ask it ugly.
“Okay,” I said, and meant it because he did.
He breathed out through his nose and braced. The weld tick-ticked, not dramatic, just wrong enough to be useful. He paused, listened, pressed again. Patient. Mean.
“Almost,” he said, soft as a secret you want to keep.
Upstairs, Keys yelled something about schedules like schedules could dry rain. Someone laughed and the watcher’svoice cut it clean off without getting loud. The generator coughed. The house held its breath in the way houses do right before somebody makes a mistake.
He levered one more notch. The seam popped like a knuckle and settled crooked.
We both went still and listened to the silence answer back. It didn’t. The house had other problems.
He set the screw deeper, fed the wire in alongside it, slid the bobby pin farther under the lip, and gave the floor a last, patient push.
The weld let go in a breath and a promise.
He didn’t grin. He didn’t need to. He lifted his wrists, let the pretty tie slip free, and met my eyes through steel.
“Ready,” he said.
“Always,” I said, and it wasn’t about surviving anymore. It was about him. About us.
