Page 61 of Dose

“So do I.”

“I am still presenting the case.”

“I am still arguing against it.”

“Fair.”

It is not agreement. It is the first honest boundary we have found inside the fight.

Tomorrow, she will put her proposal before Nikolai and Ezra. I will stand beside her and explain every reason it should be rejected.

Tonight, my arm around her does not mean she has conceded, and her hand over my heart does not mean I have.

Neither of us lets go.

21

ISLA

The training room is three levels above our quarters, a concrete rectangle lined with impact mats. Damon keeps the weapons rack with the reverence other people reserve for altars. Theon has cleared a section of wall and pinned up a laminated plan of the Phoenix facility, which means we are doing communication failures and extraction routes again.

I should be paying attention.

I am paying attention to his mouth.

This is the third day of training since Nikolai granted me provisional clearance. Provisional came with conditions: I pass the live assessment tomorrow, I remain with Raphael once the medical wing is secure, and I leave the moment the field lead calls an abort. Phoenix is in five days. Every hour in this room matters.

So does Theon’s mouth, unfortunately.

He has been talking for eleven minutes. His weight shifts as he explains the fallback protocol, his right hand cutting the air in clean angles. The left stays loose at his side. The smaller dressing Raphael applied is hidden beneath his shirt, but I know exactly where the sutures cross the back of his shoulder.

“—if route A is compromised, you default to the secondary egress. Left at the junction, not right. Right takes you toward—” He stops. “Isla.”

“Mm.”

“Are you listening?”

“To most of it.”

His eyes narrow. “Which part are you missing?”

“Anything said while the light was doing that to your jaw.”

For one brief second, he looks pleased. Then he remembers he is supposed to be instructing me.

“This is serious.”

“I know.” I glance at the plan. “Left at the junction. The right corridor leads back toward central security. Secondary egress is through the service corridor and down the maintenance stairs.”

“Then why are you staring at me?”

“I can do two things at once.”

“That confidence is going to get you killed.”

“Your face is going to get you kissed.”

I cross the two meters between us before he can answer. He catches me with his right arm, careful even while his mouth opens under mine. I keep my hands away from his injured shoulder. We have become very skilled at wanting each other around Raphael’s restrictions.