Page 87

The drone hovered outside, the whir of its rotors coming through the metal against my spine. The scanner’s blue light bled through the cracks, slicing across the floor like a searching finger.

Leander sat between my legs, looking up at me. In the strobe of the scanner his eyes were black pits of adrenaline.

“It’s sweeping,” he whispered.

“Don’t move,” I breathed, pressing my ear against the metal to track the sound. “If it detects us, it calls the guards.”

The drone paused. The blue light intensified, hunting a heat signature. The hum changed pitch, cycling through spectrums, sniffing the air like a mechanical bloodhound.

The space was too small for two bodies and a broken leg. Leander shifted, trying to find relief from the angle, and his shoulder bumped my knee. I reached down to find his hair, gripped the back of his neck to steady him.

“Stay still,” I commanded, a thread of sound.

Leander pressed his forehead against my thigh, hiding his face from the light. His breath came through the fabric of my tuxedo pants, hot and ragged against my skin.

The adrenaline of the escape curdled into something else.

I stood in the dark, smelling his sweat and my own fear. My heart hammered loud enough that I was sure the drone could hear it. His head against my leg was an anchor. I looked down at the back of his neck, at the vulnerable curve of his spine.

The drone whirred, hovering for an eternity, then receded down the corridor. The blue light faded and left us in pitch black.

SECTION CLEAR.

I let my head fall back against the metal door, the tension draining out of my frame. “It’s gone.”

I looked down, though I could barely see him in the gloom. Leander hadn’t moved. He was still pressed against my leg, his hand gripping my calf.

“Felix,” he said, rough.

“We have to keep moving.”

“You came back.” He sounded like he still didn’t believe it. “You had the exit. You could have walked.”

“I told you,” I said, running my fingers through his damp messy hair. “I don’t play without you.”

He reached up, his hand finding the waistband of my pants, thumb hooking into the fabric. He tugged, once, and I went down to him without deciding to, my knees hitting the concrete on either side of his hips. In the dark I found his mouth more by memory than sight, and he met me halfway, one hand fisting in my ruined shirt to drag me the rest of the way down.

He kissed like he fought. No mercy, just teeth and want. I got a hand into his hair and held him there, and he made a wrecked sound against my mouth. He tasted like copper and adrenaline. I didn’t care. I would have knelt in his blood for this.

Somewhere under the noise of my own pulse I registered his hand leaving my shirt to find the small of my back, pulling me down against him like he could weld us together and outlast whatever was hunting us. The Academy and the drone stopped existing. There was only his mouth, and the relief of being wanted back.

Then the siren wailed again in the distance and dragged me to reality.

“We need a sanctuary,” I said. “Somewhere off the grid.”

“Where?” Leander asked, gritting his teeth as he pushed himself up. “The entire facility is wired. There are no blind spots left.”

“There has to be.” I closed my eyes and pulled up the schematics I had stolen from Tegula’s terminal, blue lines tracing the cooling systems down into the old industrial section stamped OFFLINE. Below Level Four the cameras had always been a rumor. I had learned that from a medic who had officially never met me.

“Sub-level 6?” Leander asked.

“Yes. It’s decommissioned. No cameras. Just heavy machinery.”

“It’s a furnace down there,” Leander warned. “It feeds the thermal grid.”

“It’s better than a cell.”

I helped him stand, letting him lean heavily on me with his arm draped over my shoulders. He hopped on his good foot, dragging the medical boot.