Blue drove Daemon's dead fuse into the receiver cut before the skin reached Ty's hand completely.
The fuse resisted her thumb like a tooth sunk in bone. The cracked ceramic shifted by less than a nail width, and the whole bridge answered with a grinding pressure under the floor. The receiver mouth tightened around Ty's chip. The case body pressed harder from behind glass.
Ty kept his trapped finger in the groove.
That was harder than holding a sword there with both hands.
His body wanted to pull away from heat, skin, memory, and the wrong patience moving through the line. The receiver read the bone. The case skin read the receiver. Between them, his finger became the argument everyone else had to move around.
Blue put her second hand over the fuse.
Burned skin split across two knuckles as she tightened down.
"When the receiver catches, every hand moves together and keeps moving through pain," she said.
JJ planted her shoulder against the case frame.
