Page 8 of Thexan

His answer came slowly, as if each word required discipline.

“As necessary.”

The answer gave me a category without giving me meaning.

I looked down at the place where my fingers still rested against his wrist. His pulse had steadied further, the earlier force easing into a rhythm that no longer felt as if his body were trying to tear itself apart from the inside.

“And that makes me dangerous to you?” I asked.

“No.”

“To myself?”

His jaw tightened. “Potentially.”

I stared at him.

That was it.

That was the point where whatever patience I had left thinned past usefulness. He was bleeding on my cot, responding to my touch in ways neither of us could ignore, warning me in fragments, and now apparently there were enemies somewhere beyond my door who might be moving toward a settlement full of people who had no idea danger was coming.

I pulled in a breath and let it out slowly.

“Thexan,” I said, keeping my voice level by force, “what the hell is going on?”

His attention snapped fully to me.

“I need more than yes, no, and potentially,” I continued. “I need to know what this is, what you are, and whether everyone outside this room is in danger because you came here.”

He let the question hang between us before answering.

Then the surrounding air seemed to harden.

“Yes,” he said. “They are in danger.”

The answer landed cold.

“Who is they?”

“The ones tracking me.”

“How close?”

“I do not know.”

“How many?”

“I do not know that either.”

“But they’re dangerous.”

“Yes.” His eyes held mine, and this time he did not leave the answer there. “They are trained to remove threats without hesitation. If they find me here, they will not spare this structure because it contains civilians. They will not spare you because you lack information. They will evaluate proximity, interference, and usefulness. If you have aided me, you become a variable. Variables are removed.”

I closed my eyes briefly, because my mind needed one quiet second to rearrange the shape of the problem.

An unknown number of dangerous Mesaarkans—or something close enough to them to wound him—might be tracking him toward a settlement full of exhausted people with patched walls, aging weapons, and more courage than training.

When I opened my eyes, he was watching me.