“Fine,” I say quietly. “We’ll move.”
She hesitates.
Then she nods once and walks quickly toward a quiet hallway branching away from the visitation area.
I follow.
The corridor is empty except for a maintenance robot slowly polishing the floor tiles. The hum of its motor echoes faintly against the walls.
Tilda stops halfway down the hall and turns toward me.
“This conversation ends now.”
“No.”
Her eyes flash.
“You do not get to show up here and start making accusations.”
“I asked a question.”
“You made an assumption.”
“Look at him, Tilda.”
“I have,” she snaps. “Every day for two years.”
The words land harder than she probably intended.
Two years.
The number echoes through my head again.
“Tilda,” I say quietly.
“No.”
Her voice shakes slightly now.
“No, Bron. I am not doing this with you.”
“You disappeared,” I say. “Then a couple years later you’ve got a half-Vakutan kid who looks like he borrowed my family’s genetics for a science project.”
“You are imagining things.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Then why won’t you just say it?”
Her hands tighten around Jesse’s back.
The kid watches us both with wide eyes, clearly aware something important is happening even if he doesn’t understand the details.
“Because,” she says slowly, “you don’t get to interrogate me about my life.”
“I’m not interrogating you.”
