Fated To The Hollow Bond

Chapter 6: Dax slips

Mira smiled. "I am just thorough," Mira said.

Dax looked at her for a long moment, with his eyes searching her face the way Sora's had. And Mira held his gaze, refusing to look away.

"You need to forget about that door," he said finally. "You need to forget about what you think you heard beneath the floor. You need to focus on the work you were sent here to do, and you need to stop looking for things that are not your concern."

Mira said nothing. She did not agree, and she did not pretend to agree, because she had never been good at pretending to be smaller than she was.

Dax studied her silence for a moment, then something shifted in his expression, something that looked almost like exhaustion.

"Whatever you think you heard down there," he said, his voice lower now, and quieter, "forget it. For her sake, not yours."

Mira's heart stopped.

She had been careful. She had been so careful, keeping her face still, keeping her voice steady, and keeping every reaction locked down behind the mask she had worn for three years.

But the way Dax had said those words, and the weight he had put on the word "her," and the way his eyes had flickered with something that looked almost like grief—she could not hide her reaction to that.

"Her," Mira said, and her voice came out thinner than she wanted it to. "Who is 'her'?"

Dax's jaw tightened. His eyes, which had been searching her face, now looked like they were trying to avoid it.

"I said what I said," he told her. "Forget it. For her sake, not yours."

"Dax." Mira stepped closer to him, and close enough that she could see the lines of tension around his mouth, the way his hands had curled into fists at his sides. "Who is down there?"

Dax did not answer. He just looked at her, with his face unreadable, and his silence a wall between them that Mira could not break through.

"I am not going to forget it," Mira said. "You know I am not. So you might as well tell me what you know."

Dax exhaled slowly, and for a moment, Mira thought he might actually tell her something.

The silence between them stretched thin. She could see him weighing the cost of speaking against the cost of staying quiet. Then the weight tipped.

She saw the struggle on his face; the way his eyes flickered with something that looked like guilt, like fear, and like a secret he had been carrying for too long.

But then the wall came back up.

"Stay away from the lower level," Dax said, his voice flat and final. "That is not a request."

He turned and walked toward the corridor, with his steps measured and deliberate, and Mira watched him go with her heart still pounding and the word "her" still ringing in her ears.

She stood alone in the back room, with the door behind her still closed, and the darkness beneath it still waiting.

She did not open it again.

But she thought about Dax's face, the way he had looked at her, and the way he had spoken. She thought about the word "her," the way he had said it like it meant something, and the way guilt had flickered across his features before he shut it down. She pieced together from his reaction, that he knew something. And knowing something in a place like this was definitely dangerous.

She thought about the breathing beneath the floor, and the page tucked beneath her mattress, and the three years she had spent believing a story that had never quite fit.

She did not know what was down there, and she did not know who the "her" Dax had spoken of was. But she knew, with a certainty that had nothing to do with evidence and everything to do with instinct, that Dax knew more than he was telling her.

And she was going to find out what that was.

She went back to work, stacking crates and organizing supplies, and did not go near the door again. But she filed away everything Dax had said, every word, every look, and every flicker of guilt on his face.

She would use it later.

That was what she always did. She collected pieces that could be valuable to her plans, even the smallest ones, she stored them away, and when she had enough, she put them together until they made a picture she could understand.

When evening came, she walked back to her quarters and sat on the edge of the bed, with her hands steady in her lap, and her mind still turning.

The breathing had not started again.

But Dax had said something he should not have said, and that was almost as good.

It was a small c***k, but cracks let light through, and light was what she needed.

She pulled the folded page from beneath the mattress and read it again in the fading light, memorizing every word, every detail, and every possible meaning.

Patient K, Unstable, Three years.

She did not know if the "K" was Kira, and she did not know if the breathing beneath the floor belonged to the sister she had spent three years grieving.

But she knew one thing now, that she had not known before.

Someone in this place knew more than they were telling her, and she was going to find out who that someone was, and what they were hiding, and why the word "her" had made a wolf look like he was carrying a wound that had not healed in three years.

She folded the page and tucked it back beneath the mattress.

Then she lay back on the narrow bed, stared at the ceiling, and waited for the breathing to start again.

It did not come, but Mira had patience. She had learned it in the three years she spent searching for answers no one wanted to give her.

So she could wait a little longer.