Sam said ninety-six like a number could be handled if he held it in his mouth long enough.
It did not become smaller.
Caleb lay on the wet concrete with the cuff locked around his wrist and the seven-marked fragment closed in his hand. Rain clicked against the broken crane hook beside Hiro's boot. The wash bay smelled of old poison, hot silver, and the torn-open room below.
Nobody asked Sam to read the number again.
Nobody needed him to.
Caleb could feel it.
The silver had stopped moving like an illness.
It waited.
That was worse.
"Take the cuff off," Caleb said.
Sam's fingers tightened around the strap. "No chance."
"That was fast."
"Good. I can do fast."
Hiro laughed, then regretted owning ribs.
Rina pressed one hand harder over the seal patch. "Do that again and I put you out myself."
"Romance is alive."
"You have three seconds to be less annoying."
"I am using all three."
The team kept talking because silence had teeth.
