Chapter 17 · The Scrubber Doesn't Care Who's Right

"Say that again." Milo's forearm hits my collarbone before I finish turning around, and my spine cracks against the scrubber housing hard enough that the whole unit rattles on its bolts.

"I said the file's mine to read, not yours to weaponize." I get a hand up between us, shove, and he doesn't move an inch. Two hundred pounds of him, braced, not even breathing hard.

"Weaponize." He says the word like it tastes wrong. "You've been lying to every alpha on this dock for six years, Rourke. That's not a file. That's a loaded gun you've been pointing at my back since day one."

"You want to talk about pointing things." I get my knee up between us and he catches it against his thigh, pins it there, and now we're locked chest to chest in a four-foot gap between the intake fan and a wall of condensate pipes, and the air scrubbing through here smells like bleach and hot metal and him — cedar going sour with adrenaline, a scent I've spent six years pretending I couldn't taste.

"Get off me."

"Make me."

I drive my elbow up.