It works, the intimidation display, the carefully orchestrated psychological warfare, the methodical transformation of his body from crouched hunter to upright apex predator.
God help me, it works perfectly, exactly as designed, as if I'm following some ancient biological script written into my DNA that screams DANGER with every incremental increase in his height, every calculated shift of those massive shoulders.
The technicians scatter. Not even pretending to be brave, not even reaching for the emergency comm panels. They just run, abandoning their posts and their duty and me in favor of survival instinct that knows predators when it sees them.
Smart.
I'm trapped between him and the far wall. My back hits cold metal. Nowhere left to run. Nowhere that matters, anyway. He's proven he can follow me anywhere, defy any obstacle, turn three-dimensional space into his personal hunting ground.
My hand closes around something. A wrench. Heavy, solid, real. Not much of a weapon against armor that probably laughs at plasma rounds, but it's something. It's agency. It's refusal.
I throw it.
Not at his head, that's too obvious, too easy to dodge. At his center mass, where the armor plating looks thickest, where he won't expect an attack I know won't penetrate.
He catches it.
Mid-air. Without even looking directly at it. His gauntleted hand just snaps up and closes around the spinning metal like he's been tracking its trajectory since before I picked it up, like he knew what I'd do before I did.
He examines it for a moment, turning it over with what might be curiosity or might be amusement. Then he drops it. The wrench clatters to the deck between us, ringing like a bell.
Like a death knell.
"Clever," he says, and his voice is still unfiltered, still rough and deep and far too intimate for someone who's hunting me through maintenance corridors. "Using the steam. Most targets panic. You think."
"I'm not your target." I press harder against the wall, as if I could phase through it, escape into the station's bones. "I'm a person. I have rights. The Council?—"
"The Council," he interrupts, and now there's something dark in his voice, something that tastes like old anger and older betrayal, "doesn't care about your rights. They care about your utility. Same as your mother."
The words hit harder than I expect. Harder than they should.
He takes a step forward. Then another. Closing the distance with the same terrible patience he's shown since the Star Deck, since he spoke my name without saying it, since he gave me those three seconds to choose.
Time's up.
I try to dart past him. Stupid, desperate, doomed from the start. His arm extends, casual as flagging down a server at dinner, and catches me around the waist. The armor is cold eventhrough my dress, cold enough that I gasp, cold enough that frost forms on the silk where he touches.
"Let go!" I twist, fighting with everything I have. It's like fighting a bulkhead. He doesn't even shift his stance. "You can't just?—"
I feel the prick against my throat, a tiny, precise sting that lances through my panic like ice through water.
Small. Sharp. Clinical in its efficiency. Gone almost before I can fully register it, before my mind can catalogue what just happened, leaving only the ghost of sensation behind and a growing coldness that spreads beneath my skin like frost creeping across glass.
Nano-sedative. The tactical training I never wanted recognizes it immediately, catalogues the sensation even as my body starts to respond. Fast-acting. Military grade. Designed to drop targets without damage, preserve them intact for transport or interrogation or worse things I don't want to imagine.
My knees buckle, legs giving out with the sudden, undeniable authority of the sedative flooding my bloodstream. The strength that kept me upright, kept me fighting, kept me clinging to this last shred of defiance, it simply vanishes. My body becomes foreign to me, a puppet with severed strings, collapsing in stages as muscles lose their tension one by one.
He catches me before I hit the floor, his movements swift despite the bulk of his armor, one arm hooking beneath me with practiced efficiency. Like he knew exactly when the drug would take hold. Like he's done this before, too many times before. The thought should terrify me, should send fresh panic coursing through my veins, but the sedative is already dulling the sharp edges of my fear, smoothing everything into a distant, cottony haze.
"I've got you." His voice comes from somewhere above me, filtered through the growing fog in my mind. The words arequiet, almost intimate in a way that makes my chest tighten with something I can't name. A promise or a threat, perhaps both at once, spoken in that same low rasp that seems to bypass my ears entirely and vibrate straight through my bones.
The same words he used before, but different now. Softer. Almost gentle. His arm slides under my legs, lifting me as if I weigh nothing, as if I'm something precious instead of stolen property. The armor is still cold, but there's heat beneath it, human warmth that contradicts everything I know about him.
My vision blurs. The edges go soft and dark, tunneling down to just his face. Still scarred. Still harsh. But there's something in his eyes I can't name, something that looks almost like regret.
"Why?" The word slurs. My tongue feels thick, clumsy. "Why me?"
"Because you're the only thing that can save them," he says, and I don't know whothemis, don't know if I should care. "Because I don't have a choice. Because?—"
