Chapter 9 · That Name Again

The maintenance shaft smelled like burnt metal and old air filters. Keira's shoulders brushed both walls. She could still hear the archive server racks grinding shut behind the sealed hatch, but out here the emergency lighting had already cycled back to yellow standby.

Vex's sidearm was three inches from her spine.

"Don't move."

She didn't. Her palms were still hot from yanking him through the hatch before the blast door dropped. That grab—shoulder, elbow, pivot—was pure reflex. The kind of reflex you don't pick up in basic.

"Turn around. Slowly."

Keira turned. The passage was narrow enough that when she faced him they were less than two feet apart. Vex hadn't holstered the gun. His jaw was tight, his breathing controlled, but his eyes were doing the real interrogation.

"You want to tell me what you were doing in a restricted archive at oh-two-hundred?"

"Couldn't sleep."

"Try again."

She shrugged. Kept her face blank. "Got lost."

"You got lost through two locked doors and a biometric scanner."

"I'm good at getting lost."

Vex didn't blink. "That move you just pulled. The one that kept me from getting crushed. Where'd you learn it?"

There it was.