“You waiting for a speech?” I ask.
She snorts softly.
“Please don’t give one,” she replies. “I don’t have the patience for it.”
“Good,” I say. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
I turn back to the console.
“Final confirmation required,” the system repeats.
“Yeah,” I say, pressing my hand to the panel.
The interface changes immediately, processing, the noise deepening for a second before settling back into its baseline tone.
“Commission terminated,” it states. “All operational privileges revoked.”
“Sounds official,” I mutter.
“Feels different?” Jolie asks from the doorway.
I consider that for a second, rolling my shoulders slightly as I step back from the console.
“Yeah,” I admit. “Quieter.”
“Quieter’s not bad,” she says.
“No,” I reply. “It’s not.”
I turn toward her fully this time, taking her in properly now that we’re not in motion, not under fire, not forcing decisions in real time.
She looks the same.
And not.
There’s something steadier in the way she holds herself now, something that wasn’t there when we first crossed that line at the fence, when everything between us was friction and challenge and barely controlled heat.
“You done?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “You?”
She pushes off the doorway, stepping into the room.
“Walked out on their offer,” she says. “Didn’t even pretend to consider it.”
“Yeah?” I ask.
She shrugs slightly.
“They wanted me to fix it,” she says. “From the inside.”
“And?” I press.
“And I told them exactly what I thought of that,” she replies.
I huff a breath, something close to a laugh slipping through.
“I would’ve paid to hear that,” I say.
