Page 22 of Thorne
The team knows what he's doing, but none of them come around the building. Ghost remains at the perimeter. Fuse and Whisper continue their conversation beside the vehicles. Halo stands at the door with his arms folded, posture relaxed.
No one intervenes.
They have made a decision as a unit.
Thorne is guarding me, and what happens to me is up to him.
When Thorne steps closer, the heat of him is unavoidable, the scent of sweat, road dust, and gun oil filling the air between us.
My back presses harder against the concrete as he leans in.
The proximity sends a strange vibration through my body—an involuntary reaction that begins somewhere low in my spine and travels upward before my mind can intercept it. My breathing shifts as my nervous system registers the fact that his hand is resting against my throat and his body has caged mine against the wall.
His eyes sharpen. He feels it too.
The smallest change in my breathing. The faint tension in my body where it meets the wall. My pulse hammering beneath his fingers.
His grip adjusts, fingers sliding higher along my throat, thumb brushing under the edge of my jaw as he tilts my head back. The movement is deliberate enough that I feel every point of contact.
"She asked me once why some people are sick." Thorne's voice drops to a low, quiet murmur. "She was four." His palm stays against my throat as he speaks, resting over the steady rhythm of my pulse. "She had just finished her third round of treatment, and she asked why some kids get sick, and some kids don't."
I remain silent. This isn't a question meant for me.
"You want to know what I told her?"
The fence rattles faintly beside us in a wind that doesn't reach the narrow corridor.
"I told her sometimes bad things happen to good people, and it isn't their fault. That it isn't fair." His thumb presses lightlyagainst my throat. "Our job is to love each other." His gaze never leaves mine. "You want to know what I didn't tell her?"
He doesn't wait for an answer.
"I didn't tell her someone built the thing that made her into a weapon. I didn't tell her it came in a dose given in a hospital. Where every doctor believed they were helping. I didn't tell her it was designed by an AI that wanted to use her body like a radio tower."
His fingers tighten, making me gasp and press hard against the wall as if I could disappear.
"I didn't tell her the woman who funded the entire architecture is about to be sleeping thirty feet from her bedroom." His voice drops another degree. "She doesn't know any of that, and she's not going to."
"I won't tell her."
"You won't go near her." His grip tightens on my throat, forcing my head back against the concrete.
"Understood."
"I don't think you do." He leans closer when he says it, the shift subtle but unmistakable. His forearm presses against the wall beside my head, trapping me. The warmth of his body radiates through the space between us, his breath brushing faintly across my mouth.
The space between our faces shrinks until the line separating threat from something else becomes dangerously thin.
His gaze drops. Not to my throat. To my mouth.
The realization hits my body instantly. A sharp, unwelcome surge of heat spikes through me, my pulse jumping hard beneath his hand. The reaction is physical and immediate, a flash of arousal my mind refuses to acknowledge even as my body betrays it.
He feels that too.
The moment my pulse accelerates under his palm, his eyes darken. For a suspended second, neither of us moves. He's close enough to kiss me. Close enough that the possibility exists in the air between us like static waiting for a spark.
His mouth lowers a fraction and then stops.
Whatever instinct pulled him forward crashes into the reality of what he's doing. The anger in his eyes sharpens, as if he's furious not only with me but with the momentary lapse that allowed the thought to exist at all.
