Chapter 19 · Amber, Not Green

"Don't move." Milo's forearm sat flat across my windpipe, bone against bone, and the siren cut out mid-shriek like somebody choked it.

Silence hit harder than the noise did. My ears rang in the gap where the sound used to be.

"You hear that?" His voice dropped, rough, right against my ear. "That's the scrubber cycle. That's air."

"That's a guess." I got a hand up between us, shoved his forearm off my throat by an inch, just enough to talk without wheezing. "You don't know what that siren dying means any more than I do."

"I know it means it's not screaming anymore." He didn't back off. His chest stayed pressed to mine, the container wall cold at my spine, no room to give. "Small wins, Captain. Take the small win."

"Small wins get people killed in here." I planted my boot against the grate and shoved, and for one second we both went off balance, hips knocking, his knee driving into the meat of my thigh to catch himself. Neither of us let go.

The bio-lock light overhead blinked from red to amber. Amber meant transition.