"What am I looking at?" she asks, her voice distracted.
I crane my neck to look up.
"Cut the two blue wires," I say. "Just the blue ones."
She leans forward, and I adjust my hold to keep her steady. The dress rides higher on her thighs, and my fingers grip her skin firmly.
"How do you know how to bypass this system?" she asks, slicing through the first wire.
"When I came to check things out this morning, I finally managed to get up here and saw it all," I say, adjusting her on my shoulder. "One contact knows another contact, you know how it goes, and I was able to get the intel on how to bypass this system, and here we are."
She stops moving for a second.
"So you knew you couldn't do this alone and you needed me."
"Yes."
She pauses, glancing down at me.
"To be fair, it wasn't until I realized you were here for a similar reason that I knew it had to be you. It felt like it was meant to be," I admit.
She scoffs, returning to the wires.
"Oh God, you don't believe in that shit, do you?" she asks me.
"Sometimes," I say. "Sometimes things work out too perfectly to be anything else."
"No," she says. "You control all the strings."
She cuts the final wire, and the panel goes dark.
"Done."
I lower her carefully, and she slides down my body, her dress catching against my shirt. The friction is deliberate, slow, and by the time her feet touch the floor, my heart is racing.
She turns into me, and we stand pressed together for a moment. Her hands rest against my chest, and I can feel the rapid beat of her heart, too.
It takes me longer than it should to realize I'm holding her, and I clear my throat and step back.
"Whatever it may be," I say, adjusting my collar, "this is working."
"Yeah," she says and nods, staring at me. "It is."
We both turn and look at the door.
"Now what?" she asks.
So it's at this point I thought the door would open. I try the handle, and it's locked.
"Swipe the card again," I say, and she does.
"Nothing," she says and tries again.
Suddenly, a small panel beside the handle slides up, displaying text in glowing white letters:RETINA ACCESS REQUIRED.
"Blyat," Danika says. "What the hell is that?"
I stare at the panel, my mind racing.
