Page 135 of Dose

The remaining domestic network is smaller, quieter and more difficult to see.

Not gone.

I rack the tubes without disturbing the pellet at the bottom of each one.

“You’re thinking too loudly,” Isla says.

“Scientifically impossible.”

“Emotionally obvious.”

I look at her.

She has built a second workspace at the end of my bench, although she continues to call it temporary. Her handwritten labels now sit beside mine. Gwendolyn occupies the reagent shelf. A lavender sachet hangs in our bedroom because fragrances and open flames do not belong in a working laboratory, no matter how persuasive Isla believes herself to be.

The lab still smells like ethanol, clean glass and whatever compound we opened last.

It also feels like ours.

Her tablet gives the three-tone council alert.

“Marcus wants us to review a refrigerated shipment crossing Nevada by Thursday,” she says.

“Remote review?”

One eyebrow rises. “Did the message contain an aircraft ticket I failed to notice?”

“No.”

“Then remote review.”

I return to the samples before concern becomes an argument we have already had. Her field assignments remain mission-specific. So do mine. She is mine when she chooses that word. It does not make me her commander.

Possessiveness is an appetite. It is not a rank.

Ezra calls at 0214 three nights later.

The connection reaches the secure handset through four domestic relays. Encryption flattens his voice until it resembles the filter in his old mask.

I answer before the second ring.

“Status.”

“Mobile. No acute injury. No chemical exposure.” A pause. “Marchant’s Baltimore relay folded Tuesday. Two senior Wager handlers remain unaccounted for.”

“Where are you?”

“Not Baltimore.”

“Dominic will be delighted by the detail.”

“Dominic’s delight has never been a useful planning metric.”

His voice is tired. Not electronically flattened—tired beneath it.

“When did you last sleep?” I ask.

“Recently enough.”