Page 24 of The Brotherhood

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stared at her. Unwavering. Intense.

“You made it through,” she whispered, giving a small smile.

“The imprint has taken,” Mr. Quantum said suddenly. “Poppy, step out. We’ll observe from here.”

Already? She held his gaze for several more seconds, feeling like she needed more time for this connection. She finally tore away, exhaling a breath as she made her way on quaking legs. At the door, a loudwompripped through the air, taking the lights out.

“Poppy, get out!” Mr. Skul ordered as she struggled to find the door, her heart blasting against her chest.

Alarms went off in and out of the room suddenly.

“Get her out!” Mr. Skul yelled as Poppy found the door.

“I am!” another voice yelled.

Oh God, it was locked. She turned at the deep grinding sound behind her, the flash of alarm lights illuminating the pod. A high-pitched whine filled the space—not mechanical, but something deeper. Sharper. Like a charge building.

She glimpsed flashes of panicked faces behind the glass, realizing the audio was cut. Her breaths burned her chest as shewatched a streak of burning white heat move through the edges of the pod lid.

He was cutting his way out.

The pod buckled and groaned as heat bled from the seams. She screamed as it blew apart, sending shards skidding across the floor, the faint thumping of fists on the glass echoing in her head.

Poppy gasped and staggered back into the farthest wall as Handy stood, steam rising from his skin, those red burning flames in his dark eyes locked on her.

Her breaths shuddered in and out as she held his stare, numb. He took his first unsteady step forward, his balance adjusting, the tension in his body shifting, recalibrating. Her eyes lowered to that part of him she’d wanted to see, the shock of its size bringing her gasp. Steam coiled around him like a living thing, clinging to his new skin, the glow of the melted pod pieces casting shadows across his form.

She couldn’t breathe. Her pulse pounded in her ears. Instinct demanded she run, but her feet remained planted, body locked up. There was no escape. The door was locked. The system overridden.

Handy’s chest rose and fell in sharp, deliberate breaths. There was something primal behind his stare, something she couldn’t name. He was watching her. Sizing her up, like a creature assessing its environment after being unchained.

A sliver of a voice carried through a crackle of the overhead speaker. “Han—” was all that made it out. Handy turned his head slightly, not toward the glass, but toward the voice, his expression unreadable. His lips spread, not in a smile but a baring of teeth before he returned his gaze to her.

She saw them all in a panic from the corner of her eye—Quantum scrambling over the controls, King Skul with his hand flattened against the reinforced window. But there was only thesound of Handy’s breath and the residual hum of power from his arm, still glowing hot where the sharp metal on his hand had split open the pod.

Poppy’s body shook with the need to act. She wanted to run to the monster, to the man inside him who could save her. She took a step forward. “Handy,” she called, her voice careful but sure. “It’s okay.” She swallowed and took another step. “You’re okay.”

He exhaled through his nose, his head tilting as he studied her, gaze flicking over every inch of her face, her body, as though he were memorizing her.

She had the sudden sense he wasn’t just looking at her. He was deciding something.

He took another step forward and she fought not to run. Instincts clawed up her spine as she focused on her breathing. Slow. Steady.

His fingers flexed and his stance widened slightly. Coiled energy. Oh God, he was going to move.

A blink and he was there, heat filling the foot of space between them. He gripped her arms, firm but not crushing, his body looming over hers, radiating something untamed in those muscles wound too tight.

His breath fanned hot against her face. She couldn’t think. His lips grazed her temple. Not a kiss. A… test. He was waiting for something to happen.

Her breath shuddered as she stood trapped in the electric space between fear and something else, the red glowing flecks in his eyes imprisoning her.

“Say it,” he whispered.

A whimper strangled her dry throat. “Say… what?”

His hands tightened, not painfully, but commanding.

“My name,” he murmured, voice lower now, something fractured beneath it.

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