Page 13 of Thorne
They just exist.
Parallel tracks.
I've been waiting since the helicopter for one of them to collapse.
For the rage to win.
Or the mission.
Neither one gives.
Across the table, Stratton adjusts her hands slightly.
A small movement.
Barely anything.
But the shift draws my attention back to the narrow bones of her wrist. The faint pulse there. The way her fingers flex once before settling again against the table.
My body registers it before my mind does.
A flicker of heat. Low. Unwelcome.
The same reaction that's been stalking me since the control tower.
My brain tells me my hands belong around her throat.
My body imagines something else entirely.
Taking control of every precise movement she thinks she owns.
The thought slams into the wall of my anger so hard it makes my vision sharpen.
I drag my attention back up to her face before the idea has time to root.
She still hasn't looked at me. I lock down my emotions. If she looks at me, she'll see what's happening inside my head, and I refuse to let her have that kind of leverage.
"The CHOP pediatric cohort." Halo, eyes on his screen. "How many?"
Her hands don't move. She doesn't hesitate.
"I don't know."
Her answer lands hard because one of those children loves blanket forts and holds her stegosaurus so the T-rex doesn't eat it in the night.
I don't look at Stratton. I can't, not with boiling hot rage rushing through me and the need to execute the woman standing before me.
"We move in ninety minutes." Ghost rises, his posture thick with urgency.
I step out of the command tent. Need air.
I walk past the perimeter netting to the supply trucks, far enough into the open desert that my voice won't carry back to the tents.
I dial Seattle.
My mother answers on the second ring.
"Colt." Not groggy. She stopped sleeping easily when Lily got sick.
