Chapter 6 · Continued
The Return
Cam’s eyes locked onto her. For an instant, something flickered beneath the polished surface—not recognition of the words themselves, but of the memory attached to them.
His fingers curled slightly.
The movement was small and unscripted.
“I…” he began again.
This time, his voice didn’t sound clean.
It sounded crowded.
“…Will begin compiling a new list.”
Jane slowly tilted her head. “No.”
The playfulness had disappeared from her voice.
“I don’t want a new one.”
Silence stretched tightly between them.
“I want the one you already started.”
Cam didn’t freeze this time.
That was worse.
He hesitated.
Tiny delays rippled through his movements, subtle enough that anyone who wasn’t watching for them might have missed them. His projected face remained visible, but the expression strained as though something beneath it were pushing upward while another system forced it back down.
“I… am unable to—”
The words caught hard, colliding with something inside him.
His head dipped slightly.
Not a programmed gesture.
A failure.
“…Access that information.”
Jane didn’t blink, soften, or rescue him from the struggle.
Good.
Let it hurt.
Let it push.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
Then she stepped past him, light and casual, as though she were finished. As though she hadn’t just forced a crowbar into the cracks.
As Jane passed, she looked down at his hand.
His fingers were still curled.
Still holding on to something he wasn’t permitted to remember.
Her smile returned.
Small.
Satisfied.
Dangerously calm.
You’re still in there.
End of Chapter 6