Page 16 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

Anger follows because anger is safer.

“You accessed a restricted lower chamber after being removed from an unstable zone less than one hour ago,” I say.

She does not turn around. “Technically, this is a partially excavated chamber adjacent to the restricted lower system.”

“I will not play word games with you.”

“That is tragic because I was winning.”

I cross the uneven floor. “How did you open C-7?”

“With my credential.”

“Your credential does not have clearance.”

“It does if the lock is embarrassingly optimistic.”

I stop beside her and look down at the scanner in her hand. “You spoofed a security door.”

“I corrected a design flaw in the field.”

“You broke into a restricted chamber.”

“I entered a room that was desperately asking to be understood.”

“You are impossible.”

Now she looks at me. The lamplight catches the green of her eyes and turns them bright against the dust on her skin. “And yet here you are.”

The words strike too close to the bond’s raw center. I look away before my expression betrays me.

The chamber is larger than the scans suggested. League supports brace the ceiling in a crude grid, but the ruin stone ignores their logic. Black panels curve through the walls in long, overlapping sweeps. Thin inscriptions run along one exposed band, faintly luminous where Anita’s scanner passes over them. The floor tilts downward toward a sealed arch half-buried under rubble.

“You could have brought Teren,” I say.

“Terry gets nervous around doors that hum.”

“You could have brought Brakk.”

“Brakk tried to sell me a helmet charm made of wire and disrespect.”

“You could have brought me.”

Her mouth curves without humor. “Would you have let me come?”

“No.”

“Then you have solved your own mystery.”

I step between her and a section of cracked ceiling where dust trickles from a seam. “Your brilliance does not make you immortal.”

“No, but it does make me professionally obligated to follow evidence.”

“Evidence can wait until supports are placed.”

“History does not wait. People with political motives wait. People with grant committees wait. People who are scared of what the truth might do wait. Evidence sits there until someone brave or stupid enough gets close.”

“And which are you?”