“Y-2 needs a scaffold observation seat and shared data,” he said.
“As project lead for the partner line, Ivy requires access.”
Elder Thorne pointed at the registration screen.
Elena Vale — subject-researcher.
“Elena is subject-researcher,” Elder Thorne said.
“You are not. Ivy is not.”
Felix held up the temporary protection order without stepping between us.
He did not speak for me.
I selected Access Denied.
Caleb tried his visitor pass again.
The inner gate stayed locked.
Ivy stayed in the car.
Through the half-down window her eyes did not stay on the cooperation letter.
They locked on the protection file between Felix and me, then on Caleb’s face.
I went out through the side door into the visitor forecourt.
Caleb cut across my path, his eyes flooding gold.
His hand stopped just short of my brace.
“You are still Blackwood’s legal Luna,” he said, fighting to force the human words out through his bared teeth.
“Stop playing protection games with an outside man. We have a name to protect.”
I kept the brace against my ribs.
“Filing date for the formal settlement,” I said.
“Give me one.”
His jaw locked.
Then he changed the script.
“I’m not keeping you from leaving. I can’t let you become someone else’s in public before the divorce.”
“A date,” I said.
“Just a date.”
Felix’s scent sharpened behind me.
His wolf had risen; I felt it in the sudden salt-metal edge and saw it in the stillness of his hands.
He did not step between us.
He did not raise his voice.
“Then give your lawyer a date.”
Felix moved aside.
I passed Caleb, opened the gate to the inner courtyard with my key, and walked through.
Felix followed; the gate latched before Caleb reached it.
He had crumpled the copy of my protection order, not the cooperation letter.
Felix’s terminal chimed.
Maya’s name appeared above a family-day invitation, with Quinn waving both hands in the attached photograph.
“She can’t get away from the clinic,” he said.
“Her husband is stuck out of state. Quinn needs a second adult for the Academy event.”
I looked from the boy’s delighted face to Felix’s serious one.
“Do they know you don’t smile in photographs?”
“That’s why he needs a second adult.”
He turned the invitation toward me.
“Would you like to come?”
Elena did not answer the family-day invitation.
She turned the master key over in her left hand.
Caleb’s convoy had cleared the outer road, but the scent of his anger still clung to the gate glass.
“Your plan gets me out if I reach a reader,” she said.
“What happens when someone decides my injured hand is the handle?”
I had watched Caleb stop half an inch from that hand.
I had also watched four Blackwood guards wait for the order he had not given in public.
“We train for it,” I said.
My first answer was a system.
It usually was.
I opened a draft I had built after Caleb left: the brace would recognize a forced grip, unlock the nearest security door, seal the corridor behind Elena, and send a car to a route I had chosen.
Four green arrows lit around her name.
“No,” she said.
“You would not need either hand.”
“And if your nearest safe route puts me in a locked car?”
“The car would take you to the protected site.”
“A destination you chose. Doors the system seals. A driver I did not call.” She looked at me across the tablet.
“That is a better cage. It is still a cage.”
I looked at the fixed destination.
I had picked it without once imagining her inside the car, trying a locked handle.
I deleted the automatic lock first.
Then the assigned car.
Then the fixed destination.
Her key could activate any one of them.
The alert would tell my team which route she chose; it would not choose for her.
“Better,” she said.
I saved the revision.
The old site’s training room had padded walls, two exit readers, and no cameras unless the person inside turned them on.
Elena activated one recorder herself and put the stop control within reach of her left hand.
“Show me the hold Caleb’s people would use,” she said.
“They will take the left wrist because they think the right is useless. Then they will steer the injured side because pain makes most people follow.”
“Most people.”
“May I take your left wrist?”
“Yes. Not the right arm.”
I closed my hand around her left wrist.
Her pulse jumped against my fingers.
Night-bloom rose beneath antiseptic and cold metal, and my wolf pressed forward to learn every change in it.
I loosened my grip.
“You let go,” she said.
“Your pulse changed.”
“It will change when someone grabs me. If you release every time, you are teaching me to escape a polite man.”
She was right.
I hated that being right required me to hold her harder.
“Again?”
“Again.”
This time I locked her left wrist and stepped toward the damaged side without touching it.
She pulled away.
Wrong direction.
The grip tightened, her balance followed mine, and pain crossed her face before she hid it.
“Stop,” she said.
I released her before the last consonant ended.
She stood breathing through her nose, right arm held close to her body.
I did not reach for it.
“Tell me when you want the next attempt.”
“Tell me what I did wrong.”
“You protected the hand by giving me the rest of you. Step toward the grip. Turn your thumb through the weakest point. Use your shoulder and heel. Your fingers do not have to win.”
I demonstrated on my own wrist.
She copied the movement once in the air, then reset her feet.