Page 147 of Villainous Intent

He had seen Ash’s hands on me. He had seen me pinned, helpless, and weak.

Twelve continued his examination, gentle fingers probing the tender spots on my scalp, but I barely registered his touch. My skin felt too tight, crawling with a phantom sensation of rough hands and heat.

Maybe that was why Cipher didn’t speak. What was there to say to something that had been handled by Baron Ash? He must be disgusted.

I felt dirty. Ruined.

There was a subtle shift in the aircraft’s engines. We were landing. I tried to sit up, but Twelve gently pressed me back down.

“Please remain still until we’ve completed docking procedures,” he said.

Minutes stretched like hours as I waited, my mind spinning. The sudden hiss of the medical bay door sliding open startled me.

I expected Cipher. I wanted him to come back, to tell me I was wrong, to tell me I wasn’t damaged goods.

Instead, Havoc stood in the doorway.

His eyes burned with cold fury. The chaos energy that was his birthright crackled around his clenched fists, dark blue tendrils that writhed like living things.

“Report,” he commanded Twelve, his voice deceptively soft.

Twelve recited my injuries, each word causing the chaos energy around Havoc’s hands to pulse brighter. When Twelve finished, Havoc nodded once.

“I’m taking her now.” Without waiting for a response, he moved to my side and gathered me into his arms gently. As he carried me through the ship, I caught sight of Cipher sitting in his command chair, his back to us, staring out at the viewscreen. Still silent.

“Cipher?” I called, my voice raspy and weak.

Nothing. No movement. No acknowledgment. Just that rigid back.

I wondered what numbers were in his head right now. Was he counting? Or was he just waiting for the stain on his ship to be removed?

Havoc’s arms tightened around me as he carried me down the ramp and into the familiar sanctuary of the Tower, leaving Cipher behind without a word.

Havoc’s arms felt like a fortress around me, solid and safe. The familiar scent of his energy, something like after lightning strikes, wrapped around me as we moved through the Tower’s corridors.

My thoughts kept slipping sideways, refusing to line up properly. Cipher’s back. His silence. The way he just... sat there. Like he was done with me.

“He didn’t say anything,” I mumbled against Havoc’s chest.

Havoc’s arms tightened fractionally. “Don’t think about him right now.”

But I couldn’t stop. The image of Cipher sitting there, rigid and distant while I was carried away, kept replaying in fragmented loops. It hurt more than Baron Ash’s hands around my throat. More than my head smashing against concrete.

“He saved me,” I whispered, tears finally leaking from my eyes, hot and humiliating. “But he didn’t want me.”

The elevator doors closed around us, and something inside me closed too, a door I hadn’t realized was wide open until now.

In the reflection of the polished elevator walls, I caught a glimpse of my bruised face, my disheveled hair, the marks on my skin. I looked like a stranger, someone used up. Someone small and broken and abandoned.

And maybe that’s what I was. Because when it really mattered, when I needed more than just a physical rescue, Cipher had turned away.

Just another number. Just another broken thing he didn’t want to touch. That’s what I was to him. Nothing more.

CHAPTER 29

ANNIE

I fingered the high collar of my dress as Five and Eight escorted me through the Nexus’ service corridors. The stylist had done an excellent job finding something that concealed the fading purple-black bruises circling my throat, but the fabric pressed against the tender skin with every swallow, a constant reminder of yesterday’s nightmare. Havoc’s physician had done what he could to treat me, but he hadn’t been able to fix the bruising completely.