Page 85 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

She doesn’t run.

Instead, she moves toward the intruder. One moment she’s standing with her hands up, the next she’s on him, her hand striking his wrist, and the gun flies from his grip, spinning into the darkness.

It hits the building and the alarm triggers. Red light floods the frame, strobing, and they fight.

Sophie is fighting him, in workout clothes, a man who outweighs her by at least fifty pounds, and she’s not just standing her ground but she’s actually winning.

Then the knife appears.

I don’t see where it comes from. One frame his hand is empty, the next there’s a blade catching the strobe light, and I’m gripping the desk so hard the edge bites into my palms.

It catches her arm. My whole body jerks forward as if I could reach through the screen and pull her out. Why aren’t you running?

But she doesn’t run or stop. She grabs his knife hand and twists until his wrist bends at an angle wrists don’t bend.

Fuck, Sophie.

I watch him run and she starts after him, then stops, pressing her hand against the wound on her arm.

I rewind the footage and watch it again.

And again.

And again.

Each time, the same thought hammers through my skull with the force of a pulse.

Why the fuck didn’t you run?

She had every opportunity. She could have retreated the moment she spotted him, or pulled back when he drew the gun. And once he was disarmed, there was nothing stopping her from sprinting for the building and letting the alarm bring the security team. Instead, she took him on alone in the dark.

But she didn’t. She never even considered it. I can see it in her body language, in the way she plants her feet and throws herself at a man with a gun like her own life is an acceptable cost of doing business.

Do you have a death wish, Sophie? Is that what this is?

I close the footage and sit there for a long moment, staring at the dark monitors. My coat is still on. My bag is still in the hallway. I haven’t eaten since the airport, and I can feel the lack of sleep pulling at the edges of my vision like a slow fog.

I go upstairs and stand under the shower longer than I need to. By the time I step out, the fog is gone. What’s left is a combination of things, but mostly anger and the feeling of watching someone you’re responsible for almost die on a screen and not being able to do a single thing about it.

I get dressed, straighten my tie, and drive to Synthera.

I switch my screen to the hallway camera outside my office.

There she is.

Sitting in the waiting area, one leg crossed neatly over the other, scrolling through something on her phone, looking perfectly content to wait. She’s wearing a pale blue blouse today, long sleeves that fall past her wrists, and those ridiculous ballet flats she seems to own in every color. Her hair is down, falling in soft waves around her face. The picture of a young professional waiting for a routine meeting with her boss.

But I know what’s under that sleeve. Eight stitches she put in herself, according to Finn. In our kitchen, on our marble counter, while he watched. A wound that should have sent her to a hospital but instead got treated like a minor inconvenience, because apparently that’s what knife wounds are to Sophie.

She’s sitting there like she didn’t nearly get herself killed on our lawn last night. Like she didn’t fight off an armed intruder twice her size while he pointed a gun at her chest. Like she didn’t break a man’s wrist with her bare hands and then stitched herself up on our kitchen counter.

At two o’clock exactly, there’s a knock on my door.

I straighten in my chair and fix my gaze on the door.

“Come in.”

The door opens, and she walks in the way Sophie Dysart always does—posture softened, shoulders curved inward, steps small and careful in those flat little shoes.