Page 159 of The Off Limits Captain

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Relief makes people careless.

On his next shift, he takes a pinch along the wall, legal by rule, shoulder through shoulder, nothing dirty enough to call. He comes off the boards two steps slow.

The second step is different from the first.

I see it.

Evan sees it.

Colt says, “Kid looks haunted,” and immediately understands from the bench sound that he has said the wrong thing.

Zach says, “Shut up, Colt,” which is not kind but is honest.

Colt sits. “I was just—”

“I know,” I say. “Enough.”

Finn gets to the bench and drops beside me, breathing hard. Too hard for the length of the shift.

“You good?” I ask low.

His eyes flash. “Yes.”

I hate the answer because I recognize it.

I have given that answer with a shoulder that needed imaging, a hip that needed rest, a shin that turned purple under the sock. I have built a career out of making yes sound like leadership when it was sometimes only fear with better posture.

Maren appears behind the bench before I can decide whether to call her.

She looks at Finn.

Then at me.

I open the gate.

Finn’s face changes.

Not anger first. Betrayal.

“Maren,” I say.

He stands.

He goes.

He does not fight it.

That tells me everything.

Between periods, I steer Finn toward the medical bay before Maren has to come looking again.

Finn sits on the table with his helmet on his knee and lets Maren run the light check. His eyes track. His answers are steady. His hands are not. He keeps flexing his fingers around nothing, opening and closing them like he can hold himself inside his own body by force.

Maren asks him to follow the light again. He does.

I stand by the door and try not to become another kind of pressure.

When she finishes, she looks at me.

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