CHAPTER 19 NORA #3
Declan put his left hand on the table. I placed mine beside it. Our blood touched the glass in two separate smears that spread toward each other as the scanner warmed.
RED ACCESS: DECLAN REEVE
BIRD ROUTE: NORA MARIAN brOOKS
My head snapped toward him. "It knows your name."
Declan's stare stayed on the panel, but his hand flexed beside mine. "Cormac."
"I'm seeing it," Cormac said. "Declan, your name shouldn't be in Mercer architecture."
Bell laughed from the other room, thin and wet. "Old blood writes forward. Mercer liked soldiers. He marked what families would give him one day."
A chill crawled up my back. "What does that mean?"
"It means Bell stays alive until I dislike her answers less," Declan said.
Rina lifted her head from Aidan's shoulder. Her eyes were fever-bright. "Declan, your father. Did he ever work Saint Brigid security?"
The room changed around him.
I felt it before anyone spoke. Declan's hand went rigid on the glass. A muscle jumped in his cheek. The red lamps seemed to deepen over his skin.
"My father worked docks," he said.
"And hospital transports," Rina whispered. "Mercer used transport men. Red access wasn't medical. It was removal. Men who moved bodies, mothers, babies, files. Vale said a Reeve line was still viable if he could bring one down here."
Declan's breathing did not change. Everything else about him did. His body went so still that the blade arm in the corridor might have looked more human.
My hand covered his before the room could ask anything else. "Declan."
His eyes came to mine slowly.
The anger in them should have scared me. It did scare me. It also made me want to step closer, because underneath it was a wound opening clean across his face. This place had not only found me. It had reached into him too.
"Stay behind me," he said.
"I am beside you. The table is very clear about that."
"Nora."
"You said my words, my choice. Your family just got dragged into the same pit. You don't get to disappear behind your gun and call it protection."
Aidan breathed out through his nose. "She has a point. A dangerous one, but a point."
Declan looked like he might kill all of us for witnessing him. Then his fingers turned under mine, gripping back. Hard. Fast. Hidden from the door by our hands, but felt all the way up my arm.
"Beside me," he said. "Half a step behind when I tell you."
"Bossy compromise accepted."
The scanner turned white.
ROUTE SELECTION REQUIRED
The red door opened a few inches. A draft came through carrying cigarette smoke, bleach, and something sweet that made Rina flinch.
"Vale," she said. "He wears that cologne."
Declan lifted his gun toward the red door.
The table flashed one final prompt.
CONFIRM ABANDONMENT OF MATERNAL RETURN
My blood went cold.
"I refuse," I said.
The prompt blinked.
CONFIRM ABANDONMENT
"It's trying to make the record say we left Marian," I said. The room tilted under me. "It wants me to choose Vale by giving up my mother."
"Change the words," Maeve said through comms, sharp and sudden. "Do not accept its language. Nora, overwrite the condition."
"How?"
"You're Marian's daughter," Isabella said. "Talk like one."
The blue light shook beside me. Marian's bracelet held against the panel, warming under my blood.
I thought of Thomas's hands fixing a cheap kitchen chair, Isabella's voice calling him Dad without hesitation, Rina pointing down on camera while bruised and terrified, Declan's palm at my jaw, giving me back my own choice in a room built to steal it.
My hand pressed harder to the table.
"I do not abandon Marian Brooks," I said. My voice came out rough, then stronger. "I hold maternal return under trust protection. I pursue active threat to preserve the mothers. Daughter route remains attached. Guardian token remains attached. Red access witnesses."
The room pulsed once.
COMMAND CONFLICT
Declan leaned close, his shoulder touching mine. "Add me."
"What?"
"It wants red access. Use it."
"I am not feeding you to this thing."
His mouth brushed my ear when he spoke, too close, too steady. "Use me before Vale does."
My throat closed.
"Nora," he said, softer than the room deserved. "I am right here."
I turned toward him. In the red light, his eyes had gone almost black. Blood ran under the torn sleeve and dripped beside mine. He was offering the system his name because it might keep mine from being swallowed whole.
I hated him for one second because I wanted to kiss him more than I wanted to breathe.
"Red access Declan Reeve witnesses and protects daughter route," I said, keeping my voice steady by holding his stare. "Red access does not release, transfer, sell, open, or abandon maternal return. Red access follows active threat with bird route."
The table flashed.
COMMAND ACCEPTED
MATERNAL RETURN HELD
VALE ROUTE OPEN
The red door unlocked fully.
From beyond it came slow clapping.
Once. Twice. Three times.
A man's voice drifted through the opening, smooth and pleased. "Nora Marian Brooks. Declan Reeve. I've been waiting for the two of you to catch up."
Declan moved in front of me at once.
This time, I moved with him.