Chapter 11 · Switch Eleven

My own voice comes out of the vault speaker first, and it isn't mine.

"—don't need him, I never needed him—" Cut. Loop. "—don't need him, I never needed him—" On and on, sliced from three different sentences I said on the claiming floor, stitched into something that sounds like I begged for Rhys before I ever stamped his page.

"Turn it off." I'm already at the panel, both hands on it, looking for anything that resembles a mute.

Vale's hand closes over my wrist before I find one. Not soft. "Don't touch the board blind. You'll lock the loop instead of killing it."

"Then you kill it."

"Working on it." He doesn't let go of my wrist while he does it, thumb pressed flat over the fading bruise print his own grip left there in the elevator two nights back — like he's checking it's still his, even now, even mid-crisis. The vault air is thick with him, cedar and gun oil and whatever runs under a dock Alpha's skin when he's angry, and it's crawling into my lungs whether I want it there or not.

The loop cuts. Silence for one second.