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"Drop the gun."
Jude's voice came from behind me, low and steady, like he'd been waiting for this exact moment.
I spun, weapon up. He stood five feet away, hands loose at his sides, no gun drawn. The control room's emergency lighting painted half his face red, the other half shadow. He looked at the muzzle aimed between his eyes and didn't even blink.
"You're not going to shoot," he said.
"Try me."
"Already did. Three loops back. You put two rounds in my chest, reset hit before I bled out, and you woke up screaming my name."
My finger tightened on the trigger. "Bullshit."
"You want proof? Fine." He took a step closer. The red emergency light slid across his throat. "Your sister's route today was Gate Seven to the med bay. She was carrying a blue duffel. You told her to take the long way because the main corridor floods when the pressure drops. She said you worry too much. You said someone has to."
The air went thin.
"How the hell do you know that?"
"Because you told me. Four resets ago. Right before you realized Drake's the one feeding the blast sequence."
I didn't lower the gun. "Drake's the director. She's been trying to evacuate since this started."
"She's been trying to bury the evidence since this started." Jude's eyes locked on mine. "Every time you pull civilians out, she redirects the blast toward them. Every time you warn your squad, she moves the detonation point. You think that's coincidence?"
"You're a prisoner. You'd say anything to walk."
"Yeah, I would." He smiled, sharp and humorless. "But I'm also the guy who's been watching you die for six days straight, and I'm real tired of it."
The station's PA crackled overhead. Drake's voice cut through, cold and clipped. "All units, priority alert. Captain Lyra Vane is to be detained on sight. Armed. Dangerous. Consider her a hostile operative. Shoot to disable."
My stomach dropped.
Jude didn't move. "There it is."
"She just—" I couldn't finish the sentence. My own name, crackling through every speaker in Grayharbor Station. Every guard I'd trained with. Every rookie I'd covered. Every gun in this place just got pointed at me.
"She did that because you found your own action code in the blast relay," Jude said. "Which means you're about ten seconds from figuring out she's been using your clearance to trigger the loop. So now you're the problem."
Footsteps echoed down the corridor outside. Voices barking coordinates. The sound of safeties clicking off.
"We need to move," Jude said.
"I'm not going anywhere with you."
"Then you're dead in forty seconds. They'll breach that door, put three rounds in your spine, and Drake'll make sure you don't wake up this time."
I stared at him. At the man I'd been hauling through lockdown, the enemy prisoner who somehow knew my sister's schedule and my clearance codes and exactly how many times I'd died.
"Why are you still here?" I asked. "If you know the exits, if you've been through this six days running, why didn't you just leave?"
Something flickered across his face. Not guilt. Closer to exhaustion.
"Because the loop doesn't break unless we both walk out," he said. "I tried solo. Four times. Every time, I hit the perimeter and snap back to minute one. The system's locked on two bio-signatures. Mine and yours."
"That's convenient."
"That's the contract." He pulled something from his jacket, tossed it onto the console between us. A small black device, no bigger than a lighter, with two red lights blinking in sync. "Drake bound the reset protocol to a kill-switch pair. One for me, one for you. We both breach the station limits, the loop collapses. One of us dies inside, it all resets. One of us walks without the other, we snap back."
I looked at the device. At the two lights, pulsing like paired heartbeats.
"You're telling me I've been locked in a time loop with you for six days and I don't remember any of it."
"Memory wipe's automatic. Every reset scrubs the last twelve minutes unless you fight it." He tapped his temple. "I've been fighting it. You haven't. Not until today."
The footsteps were closer now. Thirty seconds, maybe less.
"So what's the play?" I asked.
"We take the service tunnel under Gate Four. It's the only exit Drake hasn't wired. We move fast, we stay low, and we don't stop until we hit the perimeter."
"And then what?"
"Then we're both out, the loop breaks, and Drake loses her favorite murder toy."
I wanted to call him a liar. I wanted to put him on the ground and walk back to my squad and pretend this was all some enemy psyop. But the PA kept crackling, and my name kept echoing through the halls, and every instinct I had was screaming that he was telling the truth.
"If you're lying," I said, "I'll kill you myself."
"If I'm lying, you won't need to. The reset'll do it for you."
The door behind me shuddered. Someone was stacking breaching charges.
"Move," Jude said, and this time I did.
We hit the corridor at a sprint. Emergency lights strobed red-red-red down the length of the hall. I could hear boots pounding on metal grating behind us, voices calling my name like I was a rabid dog that needed putting down.
Jude took a sharp left into a maintenance shaft. I followed, gun still up, because I didn't trust him and I didn't trust this and I sure as hell didn't trust Drake's voice still echoing through the station: "Vane is armed and non-compliant. Lethal force is authorized."
"How far?" I asked.
"Two hundred meters. Straight shot if they don't cut us off at the junction."
We dropped into the tunnel. It smelled like rust and old coolant, the kind of place that only saw daylight when something broke. Jude moved like he'd mapped this route a hundred times. Maybe he had.
"You said you've been watching me die," I said, keeping pace. "How many times?"
"Enough."
"That's not an answer."
He glanced back, just for a second. "Nineteen."
The number hit me like a kick to the ribs. Nineteen loops. Nineteen versions of me, walking through the same twelve minutes, dying in ways I couldn't remember.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"I did. You shot me."
Fair.
We hit the junction. Jude slowed, checking sight lines, then waved me forward. The tunnel opened into a wider service corridor, lit by a single flickering bulb. Gate Four's access hatch sat twenty meters ahead, sealed with a manual lock.
"That's it," Jude said. "We get through that, we're clear."
I moved toward the hatch. My hand was on the lock when I heard it.
A voice, crackling through the helmet comm I'd clipped to my belt three loops ago and forgotten to ditch.
Drake's voice.
"Captain Vane, I know you can hear me."
I froze.
"You've made a mistake," Drake continued, smooth and venomous. "Walking with Mercer. Believing his lies. But it's not too late. Bring him back, and we'll call this a misunderstanding. Walk away, and I'll make sure your sister pays for it."
My blood turned to ice.
"She's bluffing," Jude said, low and urgent. "She's got nothing. Your sister's on the other side of the station."
"You don't know that."
"I do. I've watched this exact play four times. She threatens your sister, you turn back, and you both die in the blast. It's bait."
Drake's voice purred through the static. "Gate Seven, Captain. Your sister's shift ends in three minutes. I'd hate for her to be caught in the wrong place when the next sequence fires."
I looked at Jude. At the hatch. At the tunnel we'd just run through.
"If I go back—"
"You die. She dies. Everyone dies. That's how this works."
"And if I don't?"
"Then we break the loop, and Drake loses her leverage."
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to trust that he wasn't just another enemy playing a long game. But my sister's name was ringing in my ears, and Drake's voice was a knife pressed to my spine.
"Three minutes, Captain," Drake said. "Choose wisely."
Jude stepped closer. Close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him, close enough that I could see the fracture lines in his calm.
"Lyra," he said, and it was the first time he'd used my name like it meant something. "You can't save her by going back. You can only save her by walking out."
"You don't know that."
"I do. Because I've tried."
Something in his voice cracked. Just a hairline fracture, but it was there.
"Four loops ago, I went back for her," he said. "I pulled her out of Gate Seven. I got her to the med bay. I locked her in a safe room. And she still died. Because the blast doesn't care who you save. It only cares that you stay inside."
I stared at him. At the exhaustion carved into every line of his face.
"You tried to save my sister."
"I tried to save everyone. It didn't work. The only thing that works is breaking the loop."
Drake's voice cut back in, sharper now. "Two minutes, Captain. I'd suggest you move quickly."
My hand hovered over the lock. My pulse hammered in my ears. Every instinct I had was screaming to turn back, to run for Gate Seven, to pull my sister out of whatever trap Drake was setting.
But Jude's eyes were on mine, steady and certain, and for the first time since this nightmare started, someone was telling me the truth.
I spun the lock. The hatch groaned open.
"Let's go," I said.
We climbed through. The tunnel beyond was narrow, low-ceilinged, barely wide enough for one person at a time. I could hear the station alarms wailing behind us, distant but relentless.
We were ten meters from the perimeter when the explosion hit.
Not behind us. Ahead.
The tunnel shook. Dust rained from the ceiling. I hit the ground, Jude landing beside me, and through the ringing in my ears I heard it.
Drake's voice, crackling through every speaker in the station.
"Captain Vane has been declared a traitor to Grayharbor. All units, engage on sight. Lethal force is authorized. Repeat: Lyra Vane is now a kill-on-sight target."
The words echoed down the tunnel, bouncing off metal and stone, and somewhere above us I heard the sound of boots.
A lot of boots.
Jude looked at me. His mouth was a tight line.
"Still think I'm lying?" he asked.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. Because every gun in this station had just swung toward me, and the only person standing between me and a firing squad was the enemy I'd been ordered to