The red light wasn't on the wall.
It was in their eyes.
Three body cams. A hallway camera aimed at her door like a gun barrel. A tech with a tablet held high, framing Nora the way people framed evidence.
And on the floor—
Kaelen.
One knee down. One hand braced on the cheap apartment carpet like it was a throne-room marble he'd decided to tolerate. The dart still sat in his shoulder, black tip buried under skin that steamed faintly as if his body was trying to burn the foreign thing out.
His jaw was locked.
His gaze—
On her.
Not on the rifles. Not on Mercer. Not on the cameras.
On Nora, like he'd anchored himself to her name and would rather rip the world apart than drift.
Mercer kept his rifle lowered. Which was a choice. Which meant he wanted credit for it.
"Ma'am," he said, voice even. "For the record, we need you to repeat the instruction."
Nora didn't blink.
"For your protection," Mercer added, as if the phrase could disinfect the hallway.
Behind Mercer, the tech—Lin, his patch said—tilted the tablet an inch, hungry for a clean shot of her face. Another officer lifted a handheld camera, the kind used for evidence bags and victims who later got called liars.
Zane leaned against Nora's doorframe like he owned it, the shadow of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
Rix stayed deeper inside, half-hidden, eyes bright with amusement that didn't belong in a quarantine hallway.
Nora tasted copper.
Not fear.
Cost.
"Repeat it," Mercer said again. "Say it. So Command understands you have control."
Control.
A word that could mean safety.
A word that could also mean leash.
Nora let her gaze flick to the hallway camera.
Then to the body cams.
Then back to Mercer.
"You already have the record," she said.
Mercer's expression barely shifted. "We need it without… interference."
Without the dart. Without Kaelen's silence looking like threat. Without the part where Mercer's man had fired first.
Without context.
Nora read the move the same way she read a scalpel.
They wanted a clean cut.
They wanted her to be the instrument.
Kaelen's voice came low—so low the mics might miss it, but Nora heard him because she was his gravity.
"I kneel for you," he said. "Not them."
The words hit her harder than the rifles.
Not romantic.
Not soft.
A claim.
A boundary.
Zane's eyes flicked to the hallway camera, and his voice was colder than the building's stale air. "Doesn't matter. The edit will read: King kneels to the world."
Rix's mouth curved. "The world's going to love that."
Nora stepped closer to Kaelen. Close enough that heat swelled off him and crawled under her skin. Close enough that the cameras had to choose: her face, or his.
She reached up—
Not to pet him.
Not to soothe like he was a dog.
To set a point of contact.
Her fingers found the back of his neck, right under the line of his hair. Skin too hot. Pulse too steady.
"Eyes," she said, quiet.
His gaze snapped up, instantly obedient in the most frightening way.
She paid for it anyway.
A thin spike behind her eyes, like a needle pushing through bone.
Nora exhaled slowly. Held her face neutral. Kept her hand there.
Reward.
A permission to be close.
A "good" without saying the word.
Kaelen didn't move. But his shoulders dropped a fraction, as if her touch had latched him to the floor.
Mercer watched the interaction like a man watching an animal respond to a whistle.
"You see?" Mercer said, and his voice warmed like he was talking to someone on the other end of the feed. "That's what we need. Miss—"
"Nora," she corrected.
Mercer's eyes flicked. A tiny irritation.
"—Nora," he continued, "we are not your enemy. We need you to come with us. There is a facility equipped for—"
"For assets," Zane cut in.
Mercer ignored him.
"For individuals with… anomalous influence," Mercer finished.
Influence.
Another disinfectant word.
Kaelen's heat surged under Nora's hand. A warning.
Rix shifted in the apartment's shadow. A grin, teeth showing.
Nora didn't move.
She looked directly at Lin's tablet.
"Zoom in," she said.
Lin hesitated. "Ma'am?"
"Zoom in," Nora repeated, and this time she didn't make it a command. She made it a dare.
Lin swallowed and pinched the screen, tightening the frame on her face.
Perfect.
Now the record had her voice.
Her terms.
Nora turned her head slightly, letting the hallway camera catch her profile, the line of her jaw, the steadiness of her breathing.
"If you want me to cooperate," she said, "you stop treating me like equipment."
Mercer's mouth opened, then shut. He glanced at the cameras—at the fact he was on them.
Nora continued before he could steer it back.
"You fired first," she said. "You shot him with a 'probe' on my doorstep. That's not protection. That's an attempt."
Mercer's jaw tightened. "We used a compliance tool to prevent escalation."
"You escalated," Nora said.
Silence.
Not peace.
A vacuum while the cameras drank it.
Kaelen's gaze never left her.
She could feel the question in him.
Do I move?
Do I burn them?
Nora slid her hand from the back of his neck to his shoulder—right above the dart.
Her thumb pressed, light.
A reminder of the foreign metal under his skin.
A reminder of the line.
"Stay," she whispered, not as a paid word.
A request.
Kaelen's nostrils flared. His fingers flexed once against the carpet.
Then—
He stilled again.
Mercer exhaled, slow, like he'd won something.
Lin cleared his throat. "Command is asking for a demonstration of stable compliance. For the record."
Of course they were.
Nora's pulse stayed calm, but her thoughts sharpened.
If she gave them the clip they wanted, she'd become their remote.
If she refused, they'd make her a threat on paper and kill the problem.
She needed a third shape.
A negotiation.
Zane's voice came soft, only for her. "Make them say their part on camera."
Rix's laugh was quieter. "Make them beg."
Kaelen didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
His kneeling was already a blade aimed at anyone who tried to pick Nora up like luggage.
Nora lifted her chin.
"Mercer," she said.
His attention snapped to her name like it had weight.
"You want a record?" Nora asked. "Say this on camera: you will not restrain him. You will not separate us. You will not touch me without permission. You will not order me."
Mercer stared.
That was the point.
A man who liked procedure hated being filmed making promises.
"I can't authorize—"
"You already authorized firing at my door," Nora said. "So choose. You want my cooperation today, or you want a hallway full of witnesses when your team tries to breach and something goes wrong."
Her hand stayed on Kaelen's shoulder. Quiet warning. Quiet reward.
Mercer's eyes flicked to Kaelen.
To the rifles behind him.
To Lin's tablet.
To the fact that if he pushed, he'd be doing it on record.
He swallowed.
"State your terms," Mercer said tightly.
Nora didn't soften.
"No restraints," she said.
"No separation," she continued.
"No touch," she said.
"No orders," she finished.
Mercer looked like he wanted to call her ridiculous.
Instead, he looked at the cameras.
"On the record," Mercer said, voice steady but brittle, "we will not attempt restraint at this time. We will not enter your residence without consent. We will not physically remove you."
He didn't say the rest.
Nora smiled, small and sharp.
"Good," she said.
The word landed like a reward.
Kaelen's gaze darkened—hungry, pleased, restrained.
Zane's eyes narrowed, as if he hated how much that one syllable did.
Rix's grin widened like he'd just watched a lock pick itself.
Lin lowered the tablet a fraction, relief leaking into his shoulders.
Mercer lifted a hand, and his team backed up a half-step—tiny, but visible.
A concession on camera.
A win.
And still—
The hallway camera stayed pointed at her door.
The body cams stayed on.
Procedure didn't leave.
It only learned.
Mercer nodded once. "We'll be back with a relocation proposal. Protective placement. Voluntary."
Nora held his gaze.
"Voluntary means I can say no," she said.
Mercer's mouth twitched. "It means we'll talk."
He turned, two men moving with him, rifles low, steps measured. Lin followed last, tablet still recording, as if turning it off might break the spell.
When they were ten paces away, Kaelen spoke again, voice barely more than breath.
"I will not kneel to them," he said. "Only you."
Nora didn't answer with softness.
She answered with truth.
"Then stay alive," she said. "Because they'll try to turn that into a story."
Kaelen's gaze pinned her. "Let them try."
Rix exhaled like laughter. "They already did."
Zane's phone buzzed.
He glanced at it, and for the first time in the hallway, his face changed.
Not fear.
Annoyance.
"Someone posted it," he said.
Nora's stomach dropped anyway.
"Posted what?" she asked, already knowing.
Zane turned his screen toward her.
A clip.
Seven seconds long.
Red hallway light.
Kaelen's knee hitting carpet.
Her voice—clean, sharp.
"Kneel."
Captioned in bright, hungry text:
THE KING LISTENS.
The upload name was a string of numbers.
Anonymous.
Already climbing.
Already being saved.
Already being turned into a weapon.
Nora stared at the screen until her eyes burned.
Then she lifted her gaze to the hallway camera still watching her door.
And she smiled again—small and sharp.
"Of course," she murmured.
Because the camera loved her.
Because the world did too.
And love, in this city, was just another way to get killed.