Page 65 of Hardline Torque
Victor shifted, careful of his shoulder, and smiled faintly.“I kept thinking ...if I closed my eyes, I wouldn’t open them again.”
Tane’s grip tightened by a fraction.“You did.”
“I know.”Victor’s fingers traced slow paths over Tane’s chest, aimless.“In the room ...I counted everything.Sounds.Steps.Lies.I told myself if I stayed present, they couldn’t break me.”
“They didn’t.But you need to sleep,” Tane murmured into Victor’s hair.
“I know,” Victor said.His voice was tired, but clear.Too clear.“Doesn’t mean my head’s listening.”
Tane huffed a quiet breath.“Mine neither.”
They lay like that for a few moments, the night pressing gently against the windows.Victor shifted slightly, carefully, and Tane adjusted automatically, easing the pressure without waking fully to the movement.
“Niko,” Victor said suddenly.
Tane’s hand stilled.
“What about him?”
Victor stared at the far wall, eyes tracing shadows he couldn’t quite bring into focus.“I keep thinking ...he was always there.In the background.Flying.Watching.”
“He was,” Tane said.“Still is.”
Victor tilted his head just enough to look back at him.“And he is the team’s pilot.Right?”
Tane nodded once.“Yeah, he is, one of the best as far as I can tell.”
“But not just that.”
“No,” Tane agreed quietly.
He shifted closer, pressing his forehead briefly to the back of Victor’s neck before settling again.“When people needed to talk—really talk—it was to Niko.He didn’t push.Didn’t fix.He listened.”
Victor swallowed.“And it never went anywhere.”
“Never,” Tane said.“He has a vault in his head.Iron doors.He always said he could open it if he ever thought he needed to.But loyalty matters more to him than anything else.”
Victor closed his eyes.The image settled deep.“That kind of loyalty can get you killed.”
“Sometimes,” Tane said.“And sometimes it gets you followed into hell by people who won’t leave you there.”
Victor was quiet for a long moment, then, “What will we do to find him?”
Tane didn’t answer immediately.He stared past Victor, through the dim room, into the dark beyond the walls where plans were already taking shape.
“Everything,” he said at last.“We burn routes to the ground.We follow ghosts wherever they lead us and we call in debts that haven’t been spoken out loud in years.”
“And if we can’t find him?”Victor asked.
Tane’s jaw tightened.His arm drew Victor closer, not crushing, but unyielding.“Then we don’t stop, ever.And we don’t pretend it ends clean.”
Victor turned fully then, pressing his forehead to Tane’s.Their noses brushed, breath shared.
“He wouldn’t want us to hesitate,” Victor said.
“No,” Tane agreed.“He’d want us moving.”
They stayed like that, foreheads touching, the weight of what they carried settling between them—not crushing, but real.
