Page 22 of Rogue’s Mark

I step into the room and my hand finds her shoulder. One brief contact. Her flesh under my palm, warm through her shirt, and she goes still for a second.

I continue on my way.

"Rogue."

I stop but don't turn. She doesn’t have to tell me what’s on her mind. "We're moving the timeline up, Vi," I say. "I'll tell you more when I know more."

A pause. "Okay," she says. Just okay. No argument, no demands, no pushback. She trusts me, or is acting like she does, which I think is a step in the right direction.

Once out of sight, I stop, my hand still warm from her shoulder. My cock continues to run its own inconvenient commentary on the situation while my brain attempts to reassert its authority.

Brain loses.

13

ROGUE

The Rot goes quiet around ten.

Not silent, it's never silent, the generators see to that. The building itself always has plenty of moans and groans, partly because it's being used as opposed to maintained like it would be if it were still an actual shopping mall. But it's quiet in the human sense. The hub workers finish their shifts, the corridors empty out, and the low buzz of people existing in close proximity fades. What's left is, well, hard to describe.

It's just the Rot. I'm not sure there is anything else quite like it.

And to be honest, I hope there isn't. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to have a roof over my head in a man-made community with a semblance of self-government. But would I rather Rothwell not have fallen?

Hell yeah.

And so I'm in the Skylight Room when Vi arrives.

Armen is already there, sitting at the edge of the low platform we converted into seating, forearms on his knees, watching the glass panels in the ceiling where the dark sky stares back. Sting is in the chair by the wall, jacket off, the most relaxed I've seen him in days. I'm on the floor with my back against the wall and my legs stretched out, because the floor suits me. It always has.

Vi stops in the doorway.

She's changed her shirt, the one with the coffee stain replaced, and she's got her hair down now. She looks at the three of us, and her face relaxes like she knows she's safe with us. Which she is.

Armen looks up but doesn't say anything, just scoots over, making room.

She snags her spot, and her shoulders drop as soon as they touch his. I think about Fischer's slipup, her father's notes, and the fact that she spent the whole day working and still ended up here, with us.

She chose this. She chose us. She could have stayed in her room. She didn't.

"Tomorrow," Sting says. "Tomorrow, we head out."

"Tomorrow," Armen confirms.

Vi looks at her hands for a moment. "I've been outside before," she says. "I know what to expect."

Of course she’d want to join us.

"This is different," Armen says. "You've recently been to the club and back with us. That's not the same."

"I know." She looks up. "But I'm not scared."

"Nobody said you were," I say from the floor.

She cuts me a look. "You were thinking it."

"I was thinking you look better without the coffee stain."