CHAPTERSAN SONT TOUGH ME
+25 Points
CHAPTER 241: DON’T TOUCH ME
KNOX’S POV
“I understand that,” Nathaniel says, his tone stubbornly pragmatic. “But he one is going to fucking buy that arrows did this kind of damage. Their men were standing outside. They felt the entire house rumble.”
“Then tell them there was an earthquake,” I snap, the edge of my control fraying. “Tell them it was a
sinkhole, a freak storm, a gas explosion–fucking something. But the absolute last thing we are going to do is throw Ember under the bus.”
Nathaniel holds my gaze for a long, heavy second.
“Harrison’s men used incendiary bolts,” I state flatly.
“They didn’t.”
“Nathaniel.” I look at him, and the look is the exact one I’ve been giving him since I was seventeen. It
means: this is the story. Make it work. “Harrison’s men used incendiary bolts. The structural damage to the
A
storage room is consistent with a small thermal detonation during the assault. Document it that way.”
He holds my gaze for a beat. Then nods.
I take the scene.
I bypass the chaos entirely, walking straight up to the council’s guard captain. I use my height and the violence still rolling off my skin to force him to a dead halt.
“The crown assumes full jurisdiction,” I state, keeping my voice at a low, guttural register. “My team will
process the casualties. The surviving witnesses are my inner circle, so they are entirely exempt from your reports. Secure a perimeter around the storage room. It stays sealed until I personally clear it.”
The captain glances at the blood coating my hands. He registers the pure, uncompromising authority in
the air between us.
Acknowledging his place in the food chain, he gives a sharp nod. He turns to his squad and echoes my
orders verbatim.
The scene becomes mine.
Which leaves Logan.
He’s still in the storage room. He hasn’t moved since I left with Ember to the ambulance. He’s sitting on
absolute the floor with Gale’s body in his lap, and the rocking has stopped, but what replaced it is worse
stillness.
The kind that happens when a system exceeds its capacity for input, and the only alternative to shutdown
is destruction.
Gale’s blood has dried on Logan’s arms and chest. His hands are resting on Gale’s back, fingers spread,
< CHAPTER 24MPANY TOUCH ME
holding him the way you’d hold something that might shatter if you adjusted your grip.
*25 Points
Nathaniel follows me in. Armed with the details I fed him in the car about the warehouse, he assesses the room instantly.
His eyes track straight to Logan, a hard tension locking his jaw.
“We need the flash drive location and the passcode for the dead man’s trigger. Based on the timeline from the warehouse, we have approximately four hours before it auto–sends.”
“I know.”
“Knox, if that footage reaches the distribution list-”
“I said I know, Nathaniel.”
Nathaniel looks at Logan, and the calculation on his face is the kind I’ve seen a hundred times.
He crosses the room, crouches in front of Logan, and speaks in the measured, precise voice he uses when
he’s one refusal away from using his hands.
“Logan. The flash location and the deactivation code. Four hours. Cooperate.”
Nothing.
Logan doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t acknowledge that Nathaniel exists or that language is a thing that
applies to him anymore.
He stares through Nathaniel at the same middle–distance nothing, and his hands don’t move on Gale’s
back.
“Logan.” Nathaniel’s voice hardens. “People will die. The footage on that drive will destabilise every-”
Nothing.
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