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"You're bleeding."
Jude didn't look up from the panel he was prying open with the butt of his knife. His knuckles were split, red soaking through the sleeve of his jacket where something had torn into his forearm during the last reset.
"So are you," he said.
I touched my temple. My fingers came away wet. I didn't remember hitting my head, but that didn't mean much anymore. Every loop left me with a new set of bruises, a new ache I couldn't account for.
"I need the map," I said.
He didn't stop working. "No."
"Jude—"
"I said no." The panel came free with a snap. Wires spilled out, color-coded, neat. He pulled a penlight from his pocket and held it between his teeth while he traced the lines with his fingertips.
I stepped closer. Close enough to see the sweat on the back of his neck, the way his jaw was locked tight around the light. Close enough to grab his wrist if I had to.
"I can't do this blind," I said. "You know where the core door is. You know how to open it. That's the exit, right? That's what you've been aiming for this whole time."
"Yeah." He pulled a wire free, twisted it between his fingers. "And you'd do what, exactly? Walk in and ask nicely?"
"I'd stop Drake from resetting the whole damn station."
That got him to look at me. His eyes were dark, tired, but there was something sharp underneath. Something that had been watching me the entire time.
"You think Drake's the one pushing the button," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"Who else?"
He laughed, short and bitter, and went back to the wires. "You really don't remember, do you?"
"Remember what?"
"How many times you've pulled me out of that cell. How many times I've told you the same thing. How many times you've put a bullet in me anyway."
I felt something cold settle in my chest.
"I haven't shot you," I said.
He looked at me again, longer this time. His gaze dragged down from my face to the sidearm strapped to my hip, then back up.
"Not yet," he said. "Not this loop."
I could feel my pulse in my throat. "You're lying."
"Am I?" He straightened, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Tell me something, Captain. How many times have you made it past the lockdown door? How many times have you gotten your squad out?"
I didn't answer.
"That's what I thought." He moved past me, heading for the maintenance shaft at the far end of the corridor. "Every time you reset, you try something different. Every time, you lose someone. And every time, you decide I'm the problem."
"You are the problem," I said. "You're the reason we're in this mess."
He stopped walking.
The air between us felt heavy, like the moment before a storm breaks.
"You want to believe that," he said quietly. "Because if it's my fault, you don't have to ask yourself why you keep making the same calls. Why you keep losing the same people."
I grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. He didn't fight me. He just stood there, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him, close enough to see the scar that cut through his left eyebrow.
"Who did I lose?" I said.
His jaw tightened. "You really want the list?"
"Yes."
"Kess. First reset. You sent her to clear the west stairwell and the blast took her before she got halfway down. Second reset, you kept her with the main squad and she caught a ricochet in the neck. Third reset—"
"Stop," I said.
He didn't.
"Third reset, you saved Kess but lost Rourke. Fourth reset, you saved both of them and lost Mara. Fifth reset—"
I shoved him back against the wall. My forearm pressed against his chest, hard enough that I could feel his heartbeat under my sleeve.
"I said stop."
He looked down at my arm, then back at my face. His voice dropped lower.
"Sixth reset," he said, "you saved everyone but me. Put two rounds in my chest and left me in the hallway. Told yourself I deserved it."
I couldn't breathe.
"I don't remember that," I said.
His mouth curved, but it wasn't a smile. "Yeah. You never do."
I stepped back. My hands were shaking.
He pushed off the wall and kept walking, slower now, like he was giving me time to catch up. I followed because I didn't know what else to do.
The maintenance shaft was narrow, barely wide enough for one person. Jude went first, his boots clanging against the metal rungs. I climbed after him, my mind still stuck on what he'd said.
Kess. Rourke. Mara.
I'd gotten them all out this time. I'd made the right calls.
But the loop wasn't over yet.
At the top of the shaft, Jude pushed open a hatch and hauled himself through. I came up behind him and found myself in a corridor I didn't recognize. The walls were older here, concrete instead of steel, and the air smelled like rust and something else. Something burnt.
"Where are we?" I said.
Jude was already moving, following a line of faint lights embedded in the floor. "Substructure. This is what's under the station. The part they don't put on the maps."
"Drake's maps," I said.
He glanced back at me. "Drake doesn't run this place, Captain. She just thinks she does."
I wanted to argue, but I didn't have the energy. My head was pounding, my ribs ached, and every step felt like I was walking through mud.
The corridor ended at a door. Heavy, reinforced, with a manual lock that looked like it hadn't been opened in years. Jude stopped in front of it and pulled something from his pocket. A keycard, worn and bent at the edges.
"Where'd you get that?" I said.
He didn't answer. He swiped the card, and the lock clicked open.
The door swung inward, slow and silent.
Beyond it was a room. Small, windowless, lit by a single overhead panel. And along the walls, stacked in metal racks, were files.
Hundreds of them.
I stepped inside. My boots echoed against the concrete.
The files were labeled. Names, dates, incident codes. I reached for the nearest one and pulled it free.
The name on the tab made my stomach drop.
Kess Tallen.
I opened it.
Inside were photographs. Reports. A timeline that started three months ago and ended two weeks before the blast. Every detail of her assignments, her shifts, her movements. And at the bottom, in red ink: *Acceptable loss.*
I heard Jude move behind me, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine.
"Keep going," he said.
I pulled another file.
Rourke.
Another.
Mara.
Another.
Me.
I stared at my own name, printed in block letters across the tab. My hands were numb.
"What is this?" I said.
Jude's voice was flat. "This is what they've been running. Every name in here is someone they decided didn't matter. Someone they'd burn if it kept the system clean."
I flipped open my file. The first page was a photo of me in uniform, taken outside the station six months ago. Beneath it, a list of my shifts, my squad assignments, my sister's address.
And at the bottom, the same red ink: *Acceptable loss.*
"They knew," I said. My voice sounded far away. "They knew the blast was coming."
Jude didn't answer.
I turned to face him. "How long have you known?"
He met my eyes. "Long enough."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I did." His jaw tightened. "Six times. You shot me anyway."
I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, the lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then the door behind us slammed shut.
I spun around, my hand going for my sidearm. Jude was faster. He grabbed my wrist, pulling me back toward the center of the room.
"Don't," he said.
"Let go—"
"Lyra, don't."
The way he said my name stopped me cold.
The overhead panel went dark. For a second, there was nothing but silence and the sound of my own breathing.
Then a voice came through the speakers. Low, distorted, familiar.
"Captain Vane."
I knew that voice.
I'd heard it every morning for the past three years.
Violetta Drake.
"I was hoping you'd make it this far," she said. "It makes the next part so much easier."
Jude's grip on my wrist tightened.
The panel above us flickered back on, brighter now, harsh enough to make me squint.
And on the wall behind the files, a screen lit up.
It showed the station. The blast corridor. My squad, moving through the lockdown zone.
And in the center of the frame, a timer.
Eleven minutes.
Fifty-eight seconds.
"You've been very persistent," Drake said. "But persistence doesn't change the outcome. It just delays it."
I pulled free from Jude's grip and stepped toward the screen.
"What did you do?" I said.
Her laugh crackled through the speaker. "I gave you a choice, Captain. Every reset, you get to decide who lives and who dies. And every time, you choose wrong."
The timer ticked down.
Eleven minutes.
Forty-five seconds.
Jude moved to the door, testing the lock. It didn't budge.
"She's not going to let us out," he said.
I looked at the files, at the names, at the red ink.
"She's been running this the whole time," I said.
Jude nodded. "Yeah. And if we don't stop her now, she's going to keep running it."
I turned back to the screen. The timer kept falling.
"How do we stop it?"
He didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice was quiet.
"You're not going to like it," he said.
I met his eyes. "Tell me."
He pulled something from his jacket. A small device, black, with a single red button.
"This kills the loop," he said. "But it kills everyone inside the radius. Everyone still in the station when it goes off."
My throat went dry. "How many people?"
"Two hundred. Maybe more."
I stared at the device.
"That's not a choice," I said.
His jaw tightened. "It's the only one we've got."
The timer hit eleven minutes.
The screen flickered.
And from somewhere deep in the station, I heard a scream.
Mara's scream.
The same one I'd heard over comms in the last reset.
Jude's hand closed over the button.
"Lyra," he said. "Who do you