Page 29 of Dose

“And now?”

“Recalculating.” He returns to his tablet. I want that to mean lower. Ezra knows it and gives me nothing.

The door opens again. Dominic enters without a word, so unobtrusively that Isla acknowledges him before I do. He stops near the fume hood and watches her, searching for the delay between reaction and expression that would suggest a performance.

She studies him in return.

“You’re waiting for the mask to slip,” he says eventually. “I don’t think it will.” His steel-blue eyes move to me. “If she is performing, she didn’t build the role for us. The restraint is conditioned. I’ve seen no sign that her answers are rehearsed.”

Some of the tension leaves my chest. It returns the moment I hear Darius in the corridor.

He enters with his sleeves shoved to his elbows and his ink exposed, ash-blond hair deliberately untidy. His gaze takes in the room, pauses on the distance between Isla and me, and brightens.

“So this is the specialist.” He crosses the lab and takes Isla’s hand before I can intercept. He lifts it, turns it, examines her fingers with theatrical appreciation. She lets him, her expression cool. “Chemist’s hands. Steady. I’ve heard remarkable things.”

“You’ve heard nothing. I doubt Theon talks about me.”

“He doesn’t have to. He’s reorganized his glassware, he’s standing like a guard dog, and he has been staring at my hand on yours for four seconds.” Darius does not let go. He draws her half a step closer and lowers his voice. “If you tire of the sublevel, my end of the building has actual windows.”

My hand closes around his wrist.

I don’t decide to move. I am simply holding him, grip tight enough to feel his pulse. The room goes still.

“Let go of her.”

His grin widens. “Fascinating.”

“Darius.”

“He came in intending to test you,” Isla says gently. “It’s working.”

Darius releases her and steps back, palms raised. “I like her. She reads the room almost as quickly as I do.” He points at me. “And you are in serious trouble, brother. I have never seen you do that. Not once.”

“Get out of my lab.”

His eyebrow lifts. “I’m staying for the verdict. I wouldn’t miss this for a coup.”

Raphael is the last of the assigned assessors to arrive. He comes down dressed in black, silver studs catching the laboratory light, and stops an arm’s length from Isla.

He carries no tablet and asks Marcus for no numbers. He simply studies her. I watch Isla resist the urge to retreat as his attention moves over the tension in her shoulders and the careful placement of her feet.

“Someone trained that reflex into you young,” he says at last.

“Six.”

“Consequence conditioning?”

Her jaw tightens. “Yes.”

“You still protect your left side when a right hand enters your space. You did it when Darius reached for you.” Raphael holds her gaze. There is no cruelty in his expression, only recognition. “That reflex is real.”

He turns to me. “The trauma response is real. So is the conditioning. She’s one of us.” His voice lowers. “She just never got a Nikolai.”

I believe him. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed someone else to say it.

Nikolai steps into the lab a moment later, arms crossed. His pale gaze passes over Isla, then rests on me.

“Limited access,” he says. “Unescorted movement on this sublevel only. Common areas with you during monitored hours. No communications, no exit routes, and no access beyond those areas.” He holds my eyes. “She’s your responsibility, Theon. Her mistakes are your mistakes. Her betrayals are yours to answer for.”