Page 7 of Fifth
“Affirmative.”
“To people off-site.”
“Affirmative.”
He didn’t add where else the signal might run. He had seen darker markets than this, the way blood sport carried profit across stars.
Night thickened. Floodlamps burned hotter. Desert chill slipped in under the heat. Hannah pretended it didn’t touch her. The lie held five breaths. Her teeth clicked once before she bit down. He heard the sound, the tremor captured within it, and moved before she asked.
“Come here,” he ordered, voice low but commanding.
“No.” Quick. Defensive. Her arms trembled withcold.
“Rest against me. Iwill guard you.” Her pride battled exhaustion. He heard the truth in her breath.
“You keep saying that.” She hugged herself tighter, voice sharp but threaded with doubt.
“It is true. It will remain true until you are safe.” He wanted her to believe the vow carved into his blood.
“No one’s safe in a cage.” Sharp words, but her eyes flickered, betrayingneed.
“We are not yet in the preserve. We are safer now than we will be at dawn. For this moment, you are safer in my arms than anywhere else in this yard.”
She stared at him, then the tray slot, then the door. Pride fought practicality. Finally, she moved, careful, close enough to absorb his heat. He waited. She leaned. He wrapped his arm around her, drawing her into the solid line of hisside.
Her breath shivered once before steadying. Her cheek found his chest where his heart beat strong. Her body fought itself, then relented. She fit under his arm as if meant to. She sighed once, unguarded, and the sound struck him with a force beyond any blow he had endured in battle. Her hair brushed his chin, and he let the scent of her steadyhim.
He kept his eyes open, watching the yard. He marked guard rotations, the headman’s checks, restless dogs, the rhythm of jokes, the lean of a man who meant to shoot from a treetop. He memorized all of it, turning the cage into a map of threats. Every shadow became a line of defense in hismind.
“Why me,” she whispered. “You had ten choices.”
He didn’t tell her the others had already surrendered before the first step. He didn’t tell her that he had marked her the instant she lifted her head and refused to fold, that her defiance had drawn him like gravity. He kept those truths to himself and instead chose the single answer that would root in her bones.
“You were the first to meet my eyes. You were still seeing. Not only surviving. Assessing.”
Her fingers flexed against his naked ribs. Her next breath came on a soft, gentle sigh. He liked the sound. He wanted more of it, wanted her to breathe that way tomorrow when dawn broke over blood and snares.
“Does that mean I’m useful? Or yours?”
“Both. Do not mistake the word ‘mine’ for cruelty. When I say you are mine, it is not a command or intended harm. It is a vow. The only way you are mine is if you live.”
Across the yard, the headman lifted the loudspeaker. “Special odds! Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. Take your pick. Two hundred to one the alien leaves the girl.” Laughter clattered like nails in ajar.
Hannah’s spine pressed straighter into him. “They think you’ll hand me to the traps.”
“They think I am like them.” His hand settled at her hip. He didn’t squeeze. He steadied her with quiet certainty. “They are wrong.”
“How can you know? We haven’t run the first step.”
“I know my own orders. Iwrote them when I walked into this camp.”
She paused. “What are they?”
“You live. Then we leave.”
Chapter 3
HER BREATHcaught. The sound lit heat in his chest that he didn’t fully understand.
