She looks at the monitor, then at me. Her breathing — fake, but fast — evens out. Calculating.
"You want a deal," she says.
"I want to live," I say. "You want to stay awake. Same problem."
"You want to use me," she says.
"I want to not die," I say. "You want to not disappear. So we make it official."
"Official how?" she says, eyes narrowed.
I slide down the wall just enough to reach my pack without her thinking I'm lunging. I pull out the thing I grabbed from the heap with her core. A collar. Not a real collar. A limiter. Old Empire tech, meant for exactly this.
Her face changes the second she sees it.
"Don't you dare," she says.
"It's a tether lock," I say, holding it up. "It stabilizes your draw on my pulse. You don't spike, I don't stroke out. We both stay alive."
"It's a leash," she snarls. She steps back again, hits the console. "You want to put a leash on me."
"I want to put a limit on you," I say. "So you don't drain me dry the next time you throw a tantrum and vent the room. You said it yourself, you can kill me in two seconds. This makes sure you can't. Or won't."
"And if I refuse?" she says. Her voice is ice now.
"Then we both die when Vargas kicks that door in," I say. "Because right now you're pulling too much. You feel it, right? That stutter in your chest? You're hot. You're glitching. Without the limiter, you burn through me in an hour. With it, we get days. Maybe weeks."
She stares at the limiter in my hand like it's a gun.
"You don't get to own me," she says.
"I don't want to own you," I say. "I want to survive you. There's a difference."
I toss the limiter onto the deck between us. It clatters, lights blinking amber.
"Put it on yourself," I say. "Or I walk out that hatch and let you flicker out. Your choice."
She doesn't move for three long seconds. The red lights keep pulsing. The station alarm is getting louder, a low wail building through the walls.
"You think this makes you the master?" she says, finally. Her voice is low, dangerous.
"I think it makes us stuck together," I say. "Master, tool, whatever you want to call it. We're bound. Might as well not kill each other before Vargas does."
She moves so fast I flinch — but she doesn't come at me. She drops to one knee, snatches the limiter, and slams it against her own throat.
It clicks. A sharp hiss. A band of dull metal seals around her neck and lights up blue.
She gasps — a real, sharp inhale — and her back arches. Her hands fly to the collar, fingers scrabbling.
"What — what did you do?" she chokes out. Her eyes fly to mine, wide and furious and suddenly wet. "What is this —"
"It synced," I say, before she can rip it off. I hold up my wrist. My own vitals are glowing on my bracer now, linked. "See? You're capped at sixty percent draw. You can't pull more without my override. And you can't —"
"Can't what?" she snaps, yanking at it. It doesn't budge.
"Can't kill me," I say quietly. "Try. Think about it. Really think about crushing my throat."
She glares at me, hate burning clean through the fear — and then her whole arm locks up. The collar flares red. She cries out, just a short, punched sound, and her hand stops an inch from my neck, shaking violently.
"Get it off!" she snarls, but her voice cracks.
"I can't," I say. "Only I can loosen it. Only if I want to."
She's breathing hard now, chest heaving, heat pouring off her. The collar's blue light is steady, pulsing right in time with my heart. With our heart.
"You bastard," she whispers. "You put a leash on me."
"You put your hand on my throat first," I say. I step closer. Close enough that the collar's light reflects in her eyes. Close enough to feel how hot her skin is running. "Now we're even."
She looks up at me, furious, trapped, her lips parted. For a second neither of us moves. The air between us is too tight, too charged.
"You think this means I'm yours?" she says, low.
"I think it means you don't get to kill me without asking," I say. "And I don't get to die without you feeling it."
The deck shudders. A distant boom. Vargas' breach team hitting the outer ring.
I grab her wrist — the one still frozen mid-air — and pull it down, just enough to break the lock. Her fingers brush my palm, hot and trembling.
"We have to move," I say.
"Don't touch me," she hisses, but she doesn't pull away.
"Then move yourself," I say, and let go. I turn and hit the manual release for the escape hatch. It groans, then hisses, amber light flipping to green.
The hatch unlocks with a hydraulic sigh. I reach for the handle —
And the station voice cuts in, loud and flat over every speaker.
"Attention. Security lockdown. Imperial Traitor Kael Varr has—"