"I'll protect you," I say, the words sounding hollow even to my own ears. How do I protect him from a system that owns the ground I stand on? "I'll find a way to mask the readings. I've done it before with minor flares."
"You're an S-Class Enigma, and I'm a documented F-Class failure," Asa counters, a bitter edge returning to his tone. He shifts, sitting up slightly, the wool blanket sliding down his shoulders to reveal the pale, sweat-slicked curve of his neck. The sight of him like this, vulnerable, marked by my scent, trapped in a nest made of academic debris, makes the Black Current roar. It wants me to claim him fully, to mark him so deeply that even Mercer wouldn't dare touch him. "The math doesn't just'not work,' Jorak. It's impossible. If they find out an F-Class is grounding an Enigma of your caliber, they won't just study me. They'll dissect me. They'll want to know how a 'broken' Guide can do what the S-Class elites can't."
He's right, and the realization is a cold splash of reality. My presence in his life is a death sentence for his anonymity. Every moment I spend here, soaking in his calming influence, I’m leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for the Stabilization Center to follow. I should leave. I should get up right now, put on my boots, and walk back to the facility before the sun fully sets.
But when I move to shift away, Asa's hand shoots out, grabbing my wrist with surprising strength. "Don't you dare," he hisses. "Don't you dare use that 'protecting me' logic to walk out that door. You already brought the fire to my house, Jorak. You don't get to leave me alone in the smoke."
I freeze, looking at his hand on my wrist. "I thought you wanted me gone. You said I was a disaster."
"You are," he whispers, his expression softening into a painful sort of longing. He leans forward, pressing his forehead against mine. "But you're my disaster. God help me, I don't know why, but when you're not here, the world feels like it's screaming. The static... it's not just yours anymore. It's everywhere. When you touch me, it goes quiet."
I reach up, cupping his face in both hands, the scent of pear ripening into something heavy and honeyed. As I pull him down into a kiss that tastes of desperation and destiny, the logic of the world falls away.
He whimpers, a soft, broken sound that vibrates through my chest, and he begins to pull me back down into the nest. I let him lead, let him arrange my limbs and tuck the blankets around us until we are a single knot of heat and heartbeat. "Stay," he murmurs, his eyes drifting shut. "Just for now. Let the world be someone else's problem for a few hours."
Asa
I trace a line on the whiteboard, my hand steady only through a sheer, agonizing act of will. The marker squeaks with a high, thin protest that makes the back of my neck prickle. I’m explaining the golden ratio in urban planning, but my mind is a frantic tally of sensations I can’t name without acknowledging the disaster currently unfolding beneath my skin.
The slickness is the worst of it. It’s a slow, cold dampness between my thighs, a constant reminder of the way my body settled into Jorak’s scent only hours ago after I dragged him home and stuffed him into that nest too.
Every time I shift my weight, the fabric of my pants catches against the moisture, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from losing the thread of my lecture. It’s not like a heat. This is different.
It’s a fever that won’t break. It’s a jagged, entropic hunger that feels like the static before a thunderstorm, a pressure building in my chest that makes the very air in the room feel too thinto breathe. I look out at my students—mostly B-Class Guides and a scattering of low-level Alphas—and I see them as blurs of movement and color. They’re equations I no longer know how to solve.
"The tension between the grid and the organic flow of the city is what prevents collapse," I say, my voice sounding distant, as if it belongs to someone standing three feet behind me. I turn back to the board, my fingers trembling so violently I have to drop the marker. It clatters on the tray, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the quiet room.
"Professor Renwick?" A student in the front row, a girl with a kind face and an ESA-standard Guide pin on her lapel, tilts her head. "Are you alright? You look... flushed."
I force a smile, the muscles in my face feeling brittle. "The ventilation in the west wing has always been more of a suggestion than a reality, Miss Vance. We’ll end early today. Review the chapters on recursive patterns for Thursday."
I don’t wait for the usual trickle of questions or the polite nods of departure as I move toward the door with the stiff, careful movements. My blood is simmering, the Black Current I absorbed from Jorak yesterday acting like a catalyst in my veins, looking for a ground it can’t find.
The hallway is a gauntlet of sensory overload. The smell of floor wax is an abrasive chemical burn. The distant murmur of a crowded cafeteria is a roar of static. I make it to my office, my breath coming in shallow, jagged hitches that burn my throat. I fumble with my keys, the metal cold and biting against my palm, until the lock finally clicks over.
I fall into the room and slam the door shut, twisting the deadbolt with a finality that makes my knees buckle. I lean my forehead against the cool wood of the door, closing my eyes, but the darkness is worse. In the dark, I can feel the phantom weightof Jorak’s hands. I can smell the black cedar and the sharp, medicinal bite of his whiskey-heavy scent.
I’m falling apart in a way that mathematics can’t account for. I move to my desk, my movements frantic, and sweep a stack of ungraded papers onto the floor.
I need... I don't know what I need, only that the space behind my ribs is pulling and screaming for something to fill the void.
I reach for my phone, my fingers slick with a cold sweat that smells faintly of vanilla and something far more primal. I pull up the contact I shouldn't have, the one that makes my heart skip in a rhythm that would look like a cardiac event on a monitor. I don't call. I can't. To call is to admit that the F-Class Guide the system discarded is now entirely, hopelessly dependent on the one thing that can destroy me.
I slide down the front of the desk until I’m sitting on the carpet, pulling my knees to my chest. The slickness is worse now, a heavy, dragging weight that makes me feel exposed even in my private sanctuary.
A soft knock at the door makes me jump, a jolt of electricity arcing through my spine. I freeze, holding my breath until it aches in my chest. It could be Mira. It could be a student. It could be Mercer Holt, come to collect the asset he didn't realize he owned.
"Asa."
The voice is low, a resonant vibration that passes through the wood of the door. "Go away," I rasp, my voice cracking. I don’t mean it. Every cell in my body is straining toward the sound of him, a microscopic realignment that I can’t stop. "I’m busy. I have... I have grading."
"Open the door, Asa. I can smell you from the end of the hall. You’re vibrating so hard I can hear it in the drywall."
I let out a sound that’s half-laugh, half-sob. I reach up and turn the lock, but don't get up. I just stay there on the floor as the doorswings inward, revealing the dark, towering shape of him. He’s still wearing the student-disguise tactical jacket, but his eyes are entirely Enigma, dark, hungry, and focused with a terrifying precision on me.
He steps inside and closes the door, the lock clicking back into place as he looks at the papers on the floor, the disarray of my desk, and then down at me. "You look like hell," he says, though his voice is rough, almost tender in its bluntness.
"I'm fine," I snap, trying to scramble to my feet. My legs feel like wet cardboard. "I just have a fever. It’s the ventilation. I told the department head months ago—"
