The phrasing catches my attention. Not we shouldn’t. Not that it won’t work. Do not. Directive language. My stomach tightens.
“That’s how you were conditioned,” I say quietly.
His grip doesn’t change, but something in him does. It’s subtle, but I pick up on it.
“Reverse increases exposure,” he says. “Open terrain. No cover.”
“That’s not what I said,” I counter, keeping my voice level even as my pulse picks up. “I said break pattern. If we keep moving the way they expect?—”
“They expect deviation. They account for it.”
I stop, because that fits too well. I run the pattern through again, overlaying what we’ve seen with what he’s saying. Ifthey’re mapping behavior… if they’re predicting movement… then deviation becomes part of the model.
It’s not an escape; it’s a variable.
“They want us to try to break it,” I say slowly.
“Yes.”
My breath tightens.
“Then what do we do?”
It comes out quieter than I expect, not because I don’t have ideas, but because I don’t trust them. He shifts his grip, not tighter, but more deliberate.
“Control space,” he says.
I follow his line of thought immediately.
“Limit variables,” I murmur.
“Yes.”
“Force them into tighter corridors.”
“Yes.”
My gaze shifts to the rock formations around us. The narrow cuts. The broken lines. The places where movement isn’t free, where paths are restricted whether you want them to be or not.
“They lose visibility in here,” I say. “Not completely, but enough. Air patterns weaken. Ground units have to commit to direction instead of covering multiple paths.”
“Yes.”
That steadies me, not because we’re safe, but because now I understand the move.
“You didn’t turn away from the city because it was worse,” I say, glancing at him. “You turned away because it gave them too much space to work with.”
He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t need to. I know I’m right. The realization sharpens into something I can use.
“Then we stay where they’re forced to choose,” I say. “Not us.”
“Yes.”
For a second, neither of us moves. The tension from before hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s still there, threaded through everything. His hand still on my arm. The space between us still too close to ignore. But now it’s different.
I shift, testing the space again, expecting him to correct it like before. He doesn’t. That awareness sparks again, sharp and quiet all at once. I look at him. At the way his focus holds steady. At the way something underneath it isn’t as controlled as it was before. At the way his grip—lingers.
I pull in a slow breath and step forward, easing out of his hold on my own instead of waiting for him to release it. He lets me, and we move, not toward the city or back the way we came. Forward.
