“Your student ID card. I had Zero embed a tracker three weeks ago.”
Her eyes meet mine, and if she sees the guilt of failing her, she doesn’t say it.
“It’s okay, Saint. I’m fine. You got me in time.”
She stays exactly where she is, looking up at me in the cold afternoon light, her chin still up, the cut above her eyebrow already darkening.
I reach up and brush my thumb very carefully along the edge of it.
“I know what just happened,” she says quietly. “I know what you just did in there. Giving him what he wanted. I also know what you wanted to do to him, but you didn’t, and it’s because of me. You didn’t want me to see.”
“Yes.” It doesn’t mean I’ll let it slide, but I don’t want to worry her.
“The Order is going to find out.”
“I’m aware.”
I look at her. I look at the cut above her eyebrow and the steadiness in her eyes, unbroken, in the cold afternoon light after everything that has tried to break her.
“You’re worth it,” I say.
She holds my gaze for a long moment, then takes my hand.
Behind us, Zero is already watching the Order’s communication feeds light up.
It has started.
Amy
Back at his house, he does not leave before morning.
We do not talk about the Order. We do not talk about what is coming, but I know something is coming. I felt it in the way he held my hand as we walked back across campus.
In the morning, he is still there when I wake, which has never happened before. He is awake, of course. He is always awake, lying on his back looking at the ceiling with his arm around me and his breathing even and his expression that only exists in the early morning dark when he has forgotten to put the armor back on.
I watch him for a long time before he knows I’m awake.
He looks like someone who has arrived somewhere after a very long journey and is not yet sure he is allowed to stay.
I put my hand on his chest.
He looks down at me.
“Tell me what is going to happen,” I say.
He is quiet for a moment. “The Order is going to convene. Probably today. They have the surveillance footage from the depot and from the north perimeter. They have everything Valen stopped managing three days ago.”
“And what do they do with it?”
He looks at the ceiling. “They invoke the terms of my release. The conditions I agreed to when they let me out of Unit 9. I violated them, going off campus without authorization, engaging in an unsanctioned action, escalating against a civilian target.”
“Victor Sokolov is not a civilian target,” I say.
“No,” he agrees. “But he is the son of an Order affiliate, and the Order does not distinguish between its enemies and its assets when it wants to make a point.”
I look at him. “What does invoking the terms mean?”
He meets my eyes. “It means they send me back.”
