Levi glanced back and saw, through the narrowing gap between the door and the frame, a pale-faced crew member with their hand on a panel in the corridor.
And behind him — Asher, coming around the corner at a run.
His palm hit the door as it sealed and the impact rang through the metal. Through the small viewport, he could see Asher’s face, his mouth forming the same word over and over. Levi could read it without hearing it.
No. No. No. No.
The door didn’t open.
“Levi,” Jasper groaned. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be in here, man.”
The air around them shimmered like the surface of asphalt on a hot summer day, the air thickening.
Levi’s lungs registered a temperature change before his skin did, his first breath burned on the way in. The second was worse.
Well…this is a new way to go, I guess.
“Levi…” Jasper gasped. “I’m sorry.”
Levi dropped down beside Jasper and gave him a weak smile. “It’s okay, man.” He could hear Asher’s fists hitting the door, again, again, each strike coming faster than the last. The skin on Levi’s own hands was tightening as his vision narrowed the way it always did, and he let the pistol slip from his grip as blisters bubbled up on his exposed skin. He heard a sound, but it was strange. Screaming maybe? He wasn’t sure it was him.
He kept his eyes on the viewport, even as his eyes burned and the room grew hotter and hotter.
A door stopped him…he’s going to be mad about that…
Asher’s fist hit the viewport hard enough to crack the glass. The fracture pattern spread across his face in the small window, splitting it into pieces, and behind the cracks his mouth was still moving, still forming the word, still—
6
Constitution versus Charisma
Thebriefingroomcameback first with a gasp, then everything in it.
Levi was sitting down. The crew around him was mid-conversation, Owen was explaining something to Jasper, who was leaning back in his chair with a studied calm that meant he’d taken something and was hoping nobody would ask. Levi hated these kind of mid-moment resets.
His wrist hurt.
Asher sat beside him, and his fingers were wrapped around Levi’s wrist under the table with a pressure that had clearly been there for however long this reset ran before Levi woke up. He’d been holding a dead man’s wrist, waiting for it to become Levi’s.
Levi looked down at the grip, at the white of his skin where the fingers pressed, then at Asher. Whatever pain Levi saw on his face through the cracked viewport was gone, and what had returned with the reset was harder, stiller, and settled in a way that had nothing soft left in it.
“You’re back,” Asher said quietly. “We’re going.”
He stood, his grip shifting from squeezing to pulling, and Levi was halfway out of his chair before his brain caught up.
“The briefing…” Levi began, his heart leaping into his throat.
Asher walked toward the door and Levi went with him, because the alternative was being dragged visibly, and everyone was already watching. Jasper’s chair scraped behind him. “What the hell, man? Briefing’s about to start.”
Elliot was on his feet. “Kane. Whatever this is, it can wait.”
Asher stopped walking. He turned his head, looked at Levi, and said one word: “Choose.”
Levi felt the room’s tension rising. Jasper standing, Maddie’s hand halfway to her scanner, Zoe doing fast math behind her eyes. The alarm hadn’t gone off yet. Bay Seven hadn’t happened yet.
We have time…I just need to calm him down.
“Everything’s fine,” he told the room. “I just need a word with Chief Kane. Start without us if Reynolds gets here first.”
