Chapter 9
JORDAN
The thing about almost dying twice in one day is that your body doesn’t know what to do with the leftover electricity.
It keeps trying to spend it, like I’m a malfunctioning machine dumping power into circuits that weren’t built to hold it.
My hands won’t stop trembling unless I keep them busy.
My ears keep replaying the sharp pop of gunfire and the wet, ugly sounds people make when they get hurt.
My skin is too aware of everything—every brush of fabric, every change in temperature, every distant bass note from the casino floor below—like my nerves are stuck on high sensitivity and nobody bothered to install a dimmer switch.
Lonari walks beside me through the Nun’s inner corridors with the kind of calm that makes me want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he admits he’s human underneath all that control.
His suit is spotless despite the chaos, black fabric fitted to his massive frame like it was stitched onto him.
He smells faintly of clean soap and leather and the subtle iron note that seems fused into him, like blood is part of his chemistry.
I keep thinking about the moment the casino lights died.
My choice. My hands on the grid. The instant darkness swallowed the room and the mercenaries flinched.
Power.
Then I think about the mercenary’s face when he said Morazin is alive, and power turns to nausea.
We move past a pair of guards at a reinforced door, and Lonari gives a single nod. They open it without hesitation.
Inside is quieter, warmer. A secure suite that doesn’t try to be cute about luxury—no fake skyline window, no perfumed air designed to lull you. This room smells like polished wood, clean linen, and something faintly herbal, like someone is trying to remind the body what calm used to feel like.
Lonari shuts the door behind us. The lock clicks. The sound is small, but my spine tightens anyway.
He notices.
Of course he notices.
“You’re safe,” he says, voice low.
I laugh, sharp and shaky. “You’re adorable.”
His eyes narrow slightly. “That wasn’t a joke.”
“I know,” I say, swallowing hard. “That’s why it’s terrifying.”
He steps closer, not crowding me, but close enough that his presence fills the space between us like heat. “You want to talk?” he asks.
I blink at him. “Do I want to talk?”
“Yeah,” he says, patient in a way that feels practiced. “Or do you want to keep pretending you’re fine until you break in half?”
My mouth opens, then closes. The truth is sitting right there, heavy and unignorable.
“I nearly died again,” I say finally, and my voice cracks on again like my body resents the word.
Lonari’s jaw flexes. “I know.”
“You don’t,” I snap, anger flaring because anger is easier than fear. “You don’t— you weren’t the one in that room when the glass blew in. You weren’t the one watching people scramble on the floor, hearing that— that sound—”
My throat tightens. The memory rises up like bile.
Lonari doesn’t interrupt. He just watches me, eyes steady, and somehow that makes it worse because I can’t hide behind his reaction.
I drag in a breath that tastes like linen and adrenaline. “I keep thinking—” I stop, swallow. “I keep thinking if I’d hesitated, if I’d frozen, if I’d been a second slower on the lighting grid—”
“You weren’t,” he says.
“That’s not the point,” I hiss.
He takes another step, and now he’s close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating off him, the subtle vibration of his voice when he speaks.
“Jordan,” he says softly. “Look at me.”
I don’t want to. Looking at him feels like acknowledging I’m not alone, and if I acknowledge that, then the fear becomes real in a way I can’t control.
“Look at me,” he repeats.
So I do.
His eyes are red in this light, darker at the edges, clear in a way that makes my chest ache. He looks… tired. Not physically—he’s built like a fortress—but emotionally, like he’s carrying five years of dust and violence and resentment and it’s all stacked behind his ribs.
“That hit was meant for me,” he says, voice calm but edged. “Or meant to remind me I can be reached. You were collateral.”
The word collateral hits like a slap.
My hands clench into fists at my sides. “So what am I, Lonari?” I demand. “Collateral? Leverage? A walking drive full of evidence you can use to threaten someone? Am I a bargaining chip you keep in a pretty room until you decide what to do with me?”
His expression tightens. “No.”
“No?” I echo. “That’s your answer? No?”
He exhales slowly, like he’s choosing his next words with more care than he usually does.
“You’re not a chip,” he says. “You’re a complication.”
I stare at him. “Wow. Romance is alive and well.”
His mouth twitches faintly. “You want me to lie and call you a miracle?”
“I want you to tell me the truth,” I snap, then my voice drops, rougher. “And I want to know if I’m your partner in this—or just… your possession.”
Something shifts in him. Not anger—something quieter. A restraint easing, just a fraction, like he’s tired of holding the line alone.
“My grandfather told me to keep you in a box,” he says.
I blink. “Kel.”
Lonari nods once. “Kel said you stay here until they decide what you are. Glar was in the room. The Nine were in the room even when they weren’t.”
My stomach twists.
“And you,” I say, “what did you do?”
Lonari’s gaze holds mine, unwavering.
“I told him no,” he says simply.
The simplicity makes it land harder than any speech could.
“You… defied him,” I whisper.
Lonari’s jaw tightens. “Yeah.”
“Why?” I ask, and I hate how small my voice sounds. I hate how much I want the answer to be something soft, something safe, something that would make the world make sense again.
He looks away for half a second—just a glance toward the wall, toward the door, toward the invisible eyes that are always watching in a place like this—and then he looks back at me.
“Because if I let them put you in a box,” he says, voice low, “I become the kind of man I hate.”
My throat tightens.
“That’s still not an answer,” I whisper, though it’s closer.
Lonari takes a step closer, slow, controlled, and lifts his hand—not to touch me, but to hover near my face, a question in motion.
“You want the ugly truth?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say immediately.
He nods once. “I don’t save people I don’t intend to keep alive.”
My breath catches.
“That sounds…,” I start, then stop because my brain is trying to decide whether that’s a threat or a promise.
Lonari’s voice softens by a hair. “You’re not leverage to me. You’re a person who saw the truth and didn’t run from it. You’re stubborn and smart and you talk too much. And you don’t deserve to get swallowed by institutions that see you as paperwork.”
My chest aches at that last part, because it hits the bruise I try not to touch.
Institutions.
Paperwork.
Containment teams.
I swallow, and I can’t stop the words that spill out next, because once the dam cracks, the water doesn’t politely wait.
“I grew up in an IHC orphan system,” I say, voice hoarse. “Not the cute holonet version where kids get adopted and everyone cries. The real one.”
Lonari’s eyes sharpen, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“They didn’t hit us,” I continue, because that’s what people expect.
“That would’ve been… too obvious. They just…
processed us. Tagged us. Moved us. If you cried, you got written up.
If you fought back, you got isolated. If you were quiet, you got forgotten.
Every adult who was supposed to protect you was just trying to keep their own job. ”
My hands shake as I talk, and I press them flat to my thighs, feeling the fabric under my palms, grounding myself in sensation so I don’t drift into memory.
“I learned early that the only time anyone listened was when you were useful,” I whisper. “When you could fix something, clean something, take the pressure off. That’s how you get to be seen. That’s how you survive.”
Lonari’s face goes very still, and in that stillness I see rage—not explosive, not performative, but deep and ugly and personal.
“That’s why you’re so…,” he starts, then stops, like he’s searching for the right word.
“Prickly?” I offer, bitter.
He huffs softly. “Yeah. That.”
I laugh, but it comes out wet.
“I called the IHC tonight,” I say, and my voice turns sharp again because if I stay soft I’ll fall apart. “I tried. I did the right thing. I told them there was an attack, that people were executed, that I had evidence—and the first thing they asked was my location.”
Lonari’s eyes darken.
“They didn’t ask what happened,” I continue. “They didn’t ask if anyone survived. They didn’t ask for the archive. They asked where I was, and when I said Gur, they started talking about containment like I’m a biohazard.”
Lonari’s jaw clenches. “I told you.”
“I know,” I whisper, and the words taste like defeat. “And I hate that you were right.”
Silence settles between us, thick and charged. The suite feels too quiet for the adrenaline still buzzing in my bloodstream. Somewhere far below, the casino music resumes, muffled through layers of wall and wealth.
Lonari steps closer again, and this time his hand actually touches me—just the back of his knuckles brushing my cheek, gentle and careful in a way that feels almost indecent from someone who can break necks like twigs.
I flinch slightly, not from him, but from the unfamiliar tenderness.
He pauses immediately. “Too much?”
I swallow hard. “No. Just… unexpected.”
His thumb drifts along my cheekbone, slow enough that my skin has time to register every detail: the warmth, the faint texture of scale transitioning to softer skin at the edge of his hand, the way his touch asks instead of takes.
My breath comes out shaky.
I hate that my body wants him when my brain is still screaming about danger. I hate that the want feels like relief, like a place to put all this frantic energy that isn’t just fear anymore—it’s grief and rage and adrenaline and loneliness all tangled together.