Chapter 18 · Switch 18

"This didn't happen." Vale's hand was still flat on the dead switch, like pressure could bring it back. "You hear me, Gia. Nothing happened in this room."

"Something happened." My voice came out low, wrecked at the edges. "The light died under your hand. That's not nothing."

"It's a bad relay."

"It's not a bad relay." I pulled my wrist back from where his fingers had been ten seconds ago, and the skin there throbbed, four bruises rising in the shape of him. "Relays don't die on cue right when you touch them. Someone killed it. On purpose. Which means someone's watching this panel right now."

He didn't answer that. He just looked at me the way he'd been looking at me since the collar tore — like he was cataloguing every inch of skin I'd stopped bothering to cover, and hating himself a little for doing it in a vault with no air moving.

The torn collar hung off my shoulder. I hadn't fixed it.