His eyes narrow slightly, studying me.
“You knew her?” he asks.
The question hangs there.
I don’t answer it.
Because that’s not what this is about.
“Give me the coordinates,” I say instead.
He hesitates, his fingers hovering over his console.
“Restricted,” he says.
“Everything’s restricted,” I reply, my voice sharpening. “Give me the coordinates.”
He shakes his head.
“Command locked it,” he says.
Of course they did.
I push off the console, straightening slowly as I let my hand fall back to my side.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “That figures.”
I turn before he can say anything else, the door sliding open with a soft hiss as I step back into the corridor, and the shift hits me immediately. The air feels tighter, heavier, like the system itself has drawn inward, and the buzzing that runs through the structure carries a sharper edge that sets my teeth on end.
“She’s not dead,” I say under my breath, my pace already picking up.
Because nothing about that report fits.
Because Jolie doesn’t get erased in six lines of sanitized data.
Because she doesn’t go quietly.
“That’s not how she goes,” I repeat, louder now, the words grounding something in me that refuses to settle.
My boots strike harder against the floor as I move, the sound echoing down the corridor in uneven bursts, and I cut through intersections without slowing, my body already mapping the path before I consciously decide it.
The reassignment.
The transport.
The shutdown.
“They pulled her,” I mutter, turning sharply around a corner. “Boxed her in and called it an accident.”
A guard steps into my path too late to adjust, and we nearly collide, his shoulder clipping mine as he stumbles back.
“Watch it,” he snaps.
“Not now,” I shoot back, not even slowing.
“Hrask—” he starts.
I don’t stop.
