Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
"Get off me!" Evelyn drove her elbow into Nolan's ribs and shoved him away from the cracked control console.
The floor dropped under his boot.
Nolan caught the edge of the platform with one hand. His other hand clamped around the side of his skull. Blood from his palm smeared across the blue-lit panel, and the dead system screamed awake beneath them.
"Evelyn!" Mika's voice snapped through the broken speaker. "Move! The tunnel ceiling is coming down!"
A section of concrete tore loose overhead.
Evelyn grabbed Nolan's jacket and hauled him sideways as dust and wiring crashed where he'd been standing. His shoulder slammed into hers. The impact knocked the breath out of her, but she kept hold of him.
"You heard him," she said. "Move."
Nolan didn't.
His fingers dug into his head. His knees hit the floor.
"Nolan."
"Don't touch me."
"Cute. Get up."
"I said don't—" His voice broke into a rough gasp.
The pulse hit her a second later.
Fear punched through the neural contract. Not her fear. His.
It came hot and sharp, dragging her into a white room full of metal arms and screaming alarms. A machine hung over Nolan's chest. Clear tubes ran from his arms into a glass chamber glowing with blue light. Someone stood behind the glass, face hidden by a mask.
Then the memory snapped shut.
Evelyn staggered, one hand catching the wall.
"What the hell was that?" she demanded.
Nolan looked up at her. His pupils had gone wide. Sweat ran down the side of his face, cutting through the dust.
"You tell me," he said.
"You're the one broadcasting nightmares."
"I'm not broadcasting anything."
"Then stop dragging me into your head."
"You think I can control this?"
Another blast shook the control room. The broken door buckled inward. Something heavy struck it from the other side.
Mika's voice crackled again. "That wasn't the tunnel. They're inside the station. Authority squad. Six, maybe eight. And drones."
Evelyn pulled her knife from her belt.
Nolan saw the blade and pushed himself upright. He was still pale, but his hand moved fast enough to catch her wrist before she could turn toward the door.
His palm locked around her.
Warm. Strong. Too close.
The contract tightened between them, a hot wire under her skin. His breath brushed her cheek as he leaned in, keeping his voice low.
"If you stab me, you feel it too."
"I know."
"Then don't be stupid."
"Let go."
His grip tightened instead.
Evelyn lifted the knife until the tip rested against the soft space below his ribs. Nolan's eyes dropped to it, then came back to hers.
"You keep grabbing me," she said. "One day, I'm going to make you regret it."
"You keep pointing knives at me. We're both having a difficult day."
"I have a brother dying in an exchange station because I came after you. I don't have time for your jokes."
That landed. His fingers loosened by a fraction.
"Mika's filter is failing?" Nolan asked.
"You heard him."
"How long?"
"Minutes. Maybe less."
"And you still dragged me through the lower tunnels."
"I dragged you because your blood woke this place up."
His jaw tightened.
"You don't know what it woke."
"Then start talking."
The door groaned. A thin red targeting beam slid through the gap and crossed Nolan's chest.
Evelyn pulled him down just as a round punched through the wall. Concrete spat across her face. Nolan twisted with her, taking the impact of the fall on his back.
For one second, she landed half across him. Her knee pressed into his thigh. His hand caught the back of her coat, holding her close to the floor while another round tore through the console.
His heartbeat hammered against her palm.
Not through the contract. Through his body.
"Get off," he whispered.
"You first."
"You're sitting on my leg."
"Then stop complaining."
A drone slipped through the ruined doorway. Its metal limbs unfolded in the dust, rifle rotating toward them.
Nolan shoved Evelyn behind a fallen support beam and rolled the other way. The rifle fired. He kicked a loose panel into the drone's path. The round struck it, and the machine jerked sideways.
Evelyn rose behind the beam and threw her knife.
The blade punched into the drone's exposed neck joint. Sparks burst across the room. The machine collapsed, one metal hand scraping at the floor.
"Nice throw," Nolan said.
"Don't sound surprised."
"I was surprised you missed my throat."
"Give me a clear shot next time."
He moved toward the dead drone, but his left knee buckled.
Evelyn caught him before he hit the ground.
"I'm fine," he said.
"You almost kissed the floor."
"The floor started it."
"You lost too much blood."
"I noticed."
She dragged him behind the support beam. His shoulder pressed against hers as they crouched in the narrow pocket between broken concrete and the control console.
There was barely enough room for one person. Nolan's chest brushed her arm every time he breathed.
The contract thrummed in the cramped space, pulling their pulses into the same ugly rhythm.
Evelyn hated that she could feel him this clearly. The uneven beat in his chest. The heat of his hand near hers. The way his breathing changed whenever the soldiers outside moved closer.
"You're scared," she whispered.
"I'm injured."
"That's not what I felt."
His eyes cut toward her.
"Stop digging around in my head."
"I'm not digging. You keep throwing the door open."
"Then walk away."
"The contract won't let me."
"You made the contract."
"You agreed to it."
"I was bleeding out in an alley."
"You still said yes."
His mouth pulled tight. "You want me to apologize for surviving?"
"I want you to tell me what you are."
Outside, boots scraped over broken glass.
A man's voice called through the door. "Evelyn Hart! Step away from the fugitive and put your hands where we can see them."
Evelyn's grip closed around Nolan's sleeve.
He felt it. His gaze dropped to her fingers.
"They know your name," he said.
"They know yours too."
"They called me fugitive. Not target."
"That bothers you?"
"It should bother you."
"Everything about you bothers me."
The voice outside came again. "Miss Hart, the man beside you is classified as a Level One bio-threat. If you resist, we will seal the room and burn the oxygen."
Mika coughed over the speaker.
The sound tore straight through her.
"Don't listen to them," Nolan said.
"They can reach Mika."
"They already reached him. That's why they're using him to pull you out."
Evelyn turned on him. "You don't know that."
"I know how they work."
"How?"
He stared at the red targeting line crawling over the floor.
"Because I've seen the rooms they keep under the dome."
"You remember?"
"Pieces."
"Convenient pieces."
"You think I chose to forget?"
"I think you know more than you're saying."
"And I think you're holding a knife because you're afraid of what happens if you learn the truth."
Her knife hand twitched.
Nolan leaned closer. Not enough to touch. Close enough that she felt his breath against her temple.
"Tell me I'm wrong," he murmured.
"You're wrong."
"You didn't even think about it."
"I don't need to think about you. You're exhausting on sight."
For half a second, something almost like amusement touched his face.
Then the ceiling cracked.
A steel beam dropped between them and the doorway, crushing the last working exit. Dust flooded the room. The floor tipped hard toward the service shaft behind the console.
Evelyn lost her footing.
Nolan caught her around the waist.
Her back hit his chest. His arm locked across her middle while her boots skidded inches from the open shaft. Below, blue light flashed over a tangle of pipes and broken machinery.
"Don't move," he said.
"I wasn't planning to fall."
"Your plans haven't been impressive so far."
"Your timing is worse."
His hold tightened as another chunk of concrete dropped into the shaft.
Evelyn's fingers closed around his forearm. His skin was hot beneath the torn sleeve. She could feel his pulse jumping under her thumb.
"Nolan."
"I've got you."
The words came too quickly. Too certain.
She turned her head. His mouth was close to her ear. Dust clung to his lashes. There was a thin cut along his cheek she hadn't seen before.
"Don't say things you can't prove."
"Then stop testing me."
"I don't trust you."
"Good. Trust gets people killed."
"That sounded personal."
"Most useful lessons are."
He shifted his feet, finding a narrow strip of solid flooring. The movement pulled her tighter against him. His arm stayed firm around her waist, keeping her from sliding.
For one sharp second, neither of them spoke.
Evelyn could have driven her elbow back. She could have cut his arm and broken free.
Instead, she looked at the blue light pulsing through the pipes below.
"You could have let me fall," she said.
"You'd have taken me with you."
"So you saved yourself."
"Tell yourself that if it helps."
The beam over the doorway shifted. A soldier's gloved hand reached through the gap.
Nolan pulled Evelyn behind him.
"Stay down."
"Stop ordering me around."
"Then make better choices."
The soldier forced an arm through the gap. Nolan seized the wrist and slammed it against the door frame. The man shouted. Nolan twisted until the weapon clattered free, then kicked it across the room.
A second soldier fired through the opening.
Nolan dragged Evelyn sideways. The round struck his shoulder.
He grunted and dropped to one knee.
The contract sent the pain into her like a live wire.
Evelyn cried out and grabbed his jacket. "You idiot!"
"You're welcome."
"You took that for me."
"No. I took it because you were standing where the bullet wanted to go."
"That's not better."
"It wasn't meant to be."
Blood spread across his shirt. Not much, but enough to turn her stomach.
The red line on the floor disappeared. The blue core beneath the console flared instead.
Every dead screen in the room blinked on.
A face appeared across the largest display.
A man in a black Authority coat. Silver command bars at his collar. One eye covered by a narrow optic implant. He stood somewhere clean, somewhere untouched by dust and ruin.
His gaze settled on Evelyn.
Not Nolan.
Her.
"Director Hart," he said.
The knife slipped in her fingers.
Nolan noticed.
"You know him?" he asked.
"No."
The commander smiled without warmth. "Still using that answer?"
Evelyn stepped in front of Nolan. "Who the hell are you?"
"Commander Rusk. Dome Security and Recovery. You signed my first deployment order."
"I was never a director."
"You were the director of Neural Containment before the outer zones burned."
Nolan's breathing changed behind her.
The screen flickered. For one frame, the commander stood beside a younger woman in a white lab coat.
Evelyn's mother.
She knew the sharp line of that jaw. The dark hair pulled tight at the nape. The silver ring on her right hand.
Then the image vanished.
Evelyn's hand went cold around the knife.
"What did you do to my mother?"
Rusk's expression stayed flat. "That's the question you should be asking yourself."
"Answer me."
"You don't remember the lab?"
Nolan grabbed her arm and pulled her back from the screen.
"Don't talk to him."
She tore free. "You don't get to decide that."
"He's baiting you."
"Maybe he knows why I keep seeing that room."
"Maybe he knows how to use it against you."
Rusk watched them with open interest. "The contract is active. That explains the delay."
Evelyn swung toward Nolan. "What does he mean?"
Nolan's face had gone blank.
That scared her more than the blood.
"Nolan."
"I don't know."
"You do."
"I said I don't know."
"Then why do you look like you just saw a body?"
He stepped closer until his chest nearly touched hers. His good hand came up, not quite touching her face.
"Because I remember the machine," he said quietly. "And I remember your mother standing behind it."
Evelyn's breath stopped.
The room seemed to tilt again.
"You said you only remembered a white room."
"I remembered more now."
"Did she hurt you?"
"I don't know."
"Did she build the machine?"
His fingers hovered beside her cheek, shaking once before he forced them still.
"I don't know."
"Stop saying that!"
She shoved him.
He caught her wrist, but this time he didn't yank her closer. He just held her there, his thumb pressing against her pulse.
The contact sent another surge through the contract. Fear. Pain. And underneath both, a violent need to keep her between himself and the soldiers.
Evelyn stared at him.
"You're afraid they'll take me," she said.
His jaw flexed. "I'm afraid they'll take both of us."
"That's not what I felt."
"You feel too much."
"And you hide too much."
A metal latch snapped on the other side of the ruined door.
Rusk's voice sharpened. "Enough. Step away from him, Director. Your brother is still alive. For now."
Evelyn went still.
Nolan's grip tightened around her wrist.
"Don't," he said.
"They have Mika."
"They want you to think they do."
"Mika's voice came through the speaker."
"They can fake a transmission."
"You heard him cough."
"Then they have him. That doesn't mean you surrender."
"Easy for you to say."
"No, it isn't."
Something in his tone made her look at him.
He was watching the screen, not her. His eyes had gone dark and fixed, like he was staring at the machine from his memory instead of the commander in front of them.
"What aren't you telling me?" she asked.
"If I tell you, you might leave me here."
"Maybe I should."
"You won't."
"You sound confident."
"Your hand is still on my jacket."
She looked down.
Her fingers were knotted in the fabric over his chest.
Evelyn released him at once. "Don't read into that."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
"You always this difficult?"
"Only with men who get me shot, drag me into tunnels, and turn out to be connected to the people hunting me."
"Then I'm honored."
The door exploded inward.
Evelyn threw herself behind the console. Nolan moved with her, shoulder against hers, and the two of them hit the floor as armed soldiers flooded the room.
Rusk stepped through the dust behind them.
He raised his rifle.
The barrel aimed straight at Evelyn's heart.
Nolan shifted in front of her, but three red targeting dots appeared on his chest.
"Don't move," Rusk said.
Evelyn's knife pressed into her palm. Nolan's hand found hers in the dark between them.
His fingers locked around hers.
Rusk looked from their joined hands to Evelyn's face.
"Welcome home, Director. Put the stray down."