"Tell me you're lying."
I snapped the words, the barrel of my gun trembling against his chest. "Tell me you don't know that name and I'll put a bullet in your throat right now."
Kade didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. He just looked down at the weapon, then back up at me with those cold, calculating eyes. He was too calm. It was the kind of stillness that made me want to scream just to see him crack.
"I don't lie about things that matter, Maya," he drawled. His voice was smooth friction, grating right on my nerves. "And your mother's survival matters. Or does it not?"
I shoved him. Hard.
He hit the wall of the safehouse with a dull thud. He didn't groan. He just leaned back against the peeling wallpaper, watching me like I was a puzzle he'd already solved.
"How do you know it?" I stepped into his space, my voice shaking. I could smell the metallic tang of blood and old rain on his jacket. "That code was never written down. Not in the files. My mother told me once—a whisper—and then she was gone. You don't just stumble onto a ghost story like that."
Kade reached into his inner pocket.
I slammed my palm against his wrist, pinning it to the wall. I was breathing hard, my chest heaving. He was solid, like a wall of granite. The heat radiating off him was suffocating. I could see the faint scar along his jawline, the steady, slow thrum of the pulse in his neck.
"Easy," he murmured. He didn't fight me. He just let his arm stay pinned, his gaze dropping to my lips for a split second before locking back onto my eyes. "I'm not reaching for a weapon. I'm reaching for proof."
"Proof of what?"
"That she's not just a memory." He shifted his weight, his shoulder brushing mine. The contact sent a jolt through me—adrenaline, or something worse. "The federal lab? The one they told you was purged ten years ago? It's still drawing power. Still running protocols. And she's the key to the lock."
I stepped back so fast he almost slid down the wall. I needed air. I needed to be away from that voice—a promise and a threat wrapped into one.
"You're playing me," I whispered. "You found some scrap of data and now you need a guide through the quarantine zone. You need a forger who knows the backdoors, so you're using the one thing I can't say no to."
Kade finally moved. He closed the gap in two strides, looming over me, forcing me to look up. He reached into his pocket again—slowly this time—and pulled out a weathered piece of parchment.
He didn't hand it over. He held it just out of reach. A lure.
"Take it," he said. "Tell me if that's a 'scrap of data'."
I snatched it. My fingers brushed his, and for a second, the world narrowed down to that tiny point of contact.
It was a note. Scrawled in a frantic, sloping hand I'd know in a thousand lifetimes.
*Maya, find the echo. Don't trust the silence.*
I started to tremble. The paper fluttered in my grip, the ink faded but the intent screaming off the page.
"Where did you get this?" The anger was gone, replaced by a raw, bleeding desperation. "Where is she?"
"I don't have that answer yet," Kade said. His voice softened, but his eyes stayed hard. "But the lab has it. And the window is closing. If we don't get inside within seventy-two hours, the system resets. The data is wiped. And whatever is left of your mother becomes permanent silence."
"Three days," I breathed. "Three military checkpoints, patrols, and a federal black site?"
"That's the deal." He stepped even closer, his breath warm against my forehead. I could feel the tension in his thighs, the sheer physical dominance of him. He wasn't a stranger anymore. He was a predator offering me a lifeline. "You get me in, I get you the files. Everything. Why she was taken, what they did to her, where she is."
I looked at the note, then at him. I hated him. I hated that he knew exactly where to twist the knife.
"And what if I just take the note and kick you out?"
Kade chuckled. A dark, dry sound. "Then you spend your life wondering if you walked away from your only chance. Plus..." He glanced at the medicine vials on my workbench. "I know your immunosuppressants are running low. I have a crate of the real stuff. Federal grade. Not the black-market sludge Nox sells you."
I froze. He'd been watching me. He'd mapped my entire life before he'd even stepped through the door.
"You're a piece of work," I spat, folding the note into my boot.
"I'm a man with a deadline," he countered. "Deal, or do we keep staring at each other until the clock runs out?"
"Fine," I said, my voice cold as ice. "New rule: you don't touch me, you don't lead, and you do exactly what I say the second we hit the street. If you look at a patrol the wrong way, I'll leave you tied to a fence for the scavengers."
Kade's lips curled into a smirk. He liked the fight. He liked that I was clawing for control while I was drowning.
"Deal."
He tossed three pieces of heavy, laminated cardstock onto the table. They slid across the wood, stopping right in front of me.
"Transit papers," I whispered. "High-level. These are authentic. Where the hell did you get these?"
"Doesn't matter," Kade said, turning toward the door. He stopped and looked back over his shoulder, his gaze heavy and possessive. "Pack your gear. We leave at dawn. First stop's Nox's turf—we need a ride that doesn't leave a trail."
I looked at the papers, then at the man who had just hijacked my life.
"Wait," I called out. "One more thing."
Kade paused, hand on the doorframe. "Yeah?"
"If you're lying about the lab," I said, gripping my knife, "I won't just kill you. I'll make sure you're still screaming when the sirens start."
Kade didn't look intimidated. He looked amused. He slowly turned his head, his eyes scanning me from head to toe, lingering on the curve of my waist before meeting my eyes.
"I'm counting on it," he whispered.
He stepped out into the night, leaving the door swinging wide open.