Page 42 of Obsession

I dropped my gaze to the scrap of paper, shaking my head. That had been seriously weird. Kind of sweet, but also a bit unsettling.

I shoved the paper with the mysterious number in the pocket of my flight suit, hoping I’d never have any reason to think of it again.

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

Britta

The ground trembled beneath my feet as Kann pulled away from the kiss, his golden eyes wide with confusion that matched my own racing thoughts. My lips still tingled where his had been pressed against them just moments before—warm, firm, and nothing like I'd imagined kissing a Drexian would feel like. Not that I'd spent time imagining it. Well, not much.

The rough cave wall dug into my back through my uniform, through the cloak, anchoring me to reality as my heart thundered in my chest. What had just happened? Kann was my instructor, my mentor, the person who'd been teaching me how to flirt with other men, for fuck’s sake. He wasn't supposed to kiss me like that, wasn't supposed to make my knees weak and my pulse race with merely the brush of his lips against mine.

I touched my fingers to my mouth, still feeling the ghost of his kiss. It had been nothing like the awkward fumbling with boys when I was a teenager, or the technically perfect butemotionally vacant kisses from my engineer ex on Earth. Those had been the right type of guys—meaning they hadn’t been my superior officer or my instructor. So why had they left me cold, while a single kiss from Kann set every nerve ending in my body on fire?

"Britta?" His voice was ragged, uncertain.

I stared into his eyes, my resolve weakening at the molten heat in them. “Yes?” My voice came out breathy and soft, like I was trying to impersonate Jessica Rabbit. Ugh. What was I doing?

Another tremor shook the cave, stronger this time, and the rocky walls around us flickered like a glitching holoscreen. Fine dust sifted down from above, coating my hair and uniform in a layer of grit that felt far too real for a simulation. The acrid taste of limestone filled my mouth as I coughed.

My engineer's brain took over, pushing aside the thoughts of Kann and his kiss as I realized it wasn’t his touch that had made me feel like the world was shifting. The world we were trapped in was moving, which was not a good thing.

My already racing pulse jackknifed, clearing the remaining daze from my mind. Holochambers didn't just glitch like this—not without serious system failures. Power surge? No, the backup systems would have kicked in. Complete system failure? The safety protocols should have ended the simulation, which would be even worse. No, something was happening, but I couldn’t explain it.

"Do you know what's going on?” Kann asked, the seductive husk gone from his voice even as his face was only inches from mine.

I wasn’t completely sure, but I knew it wasn’t good. The simplest explanation was that the program degradation was spreading too quickly for Zav to repair it. That meant that the holographic creation would start shattering and shrinking. Thedamage would move in from the outer edges of the design, with the simulated areas closest to the entry point retaining structural integrity the longest. That meant we were too far from the academy to be safe.

I blinked grit from my stinging eyes, trying to focus. "I think we should head back to the academy. To where we entered the program."

I didn't want to voice my real concerns—that the holochamber's quantum matrix might be destabilizing, that the very fabric of this simulated reality could be coming apart around us. And I didn’t want to terrify Kann. I needed one of us to have hope, even as mine was wavering.

Kann nodded, all business now, the moment of the kiss seemingly forgotten. "I can get us there. We already know which areas with pit traps to avoid. The way back should be easier, and the secret tunnels running under the academy to the grounds still exist in this time period. Fingers crossed they’re in the program.”

I remembered how insistent Kann had been that the simulation be accurate. “If they existed in your design, they exist in the simulation.”

He grinned, giving an apologetic laugh. “Right. Of course, they do. You and Zav made this simulation even more real than I’d imagined.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. My stomach clenched at the thought of those narrow underground tunnels. I'd barely made it through them the first time I’d used them, my claustrophobia turning every shadow into a closing wall, every echo into the sound of the ceiling collapsing. I’d sucked it up then because we were being taken to see the maze structure before the actual trials, and I’d sworn afterward never to use them again.

But this was another nonnegotiable situation. At least this time I would have Kann by my side. His steady presence had a way of making me feel like I could face anything—even if that steady presence was currently making my heart do somersaults in my chest.

"Lead the way," I said, pushing away from the cave wall and standing.

Kann opened his mouth like he wanted to say something else—about the kiss, about us?—but he clamped it shut and nodded, turning toward the gap in the rock that led outside.

As curious as I was about what he might have said, we needed to focus on survival now. There would be time later to talk about what had happened between us. There would be time for me to analyze why the instructor's kiss had affected me so deeply, why I suddenly couldn't stop noticing the way his uniform stretched across his broad shoulders, or why the student-teacher boundary that had always seemed so important now felt like the least of my concerns.

We emerged from the cave into the biting wind of a simulated environment. The Gilded Peaks rose before us, their snow-capped summits catching the hazy light and turning it to flame that licked along the sharp edges of the mountains. It was beautiful, perfect, absolutely accurate in every detail—and completely fake.

I gave myself a shake as I fell in step behind Kann on the dirt path. None of this was real. Not the mountains, not the cold, and maybe not even my feelings for Kann.

It’s the pressure of the situation. It’s the heat of the moment. It’s the threat of danger that made him kiss me. Nothing more.

It couldn’t be. I couldn’t let it be. I couldn’t let one guy, one kiss upend everything I'd worked so hard to achieve.

I'd spent my entire life working to earn my place—in school, in the Air Force, at the academy. Countless nights of study,years of perfect grades and exemplary conduct, all to prove that a woman could rise to the top of a male-dominated field, a human could succeed in the elite Drexian training program. One scandal—one inappropriate relationship with an instructor—could destroy it all. I couldn't let that happen, no matter how right it had felt when he kissed me.

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