Chapter 117: You’re Second on the Slate

Chapter 117: Chapter 117: You’re Second on the Slate

"I’ll try," I managed.

Rei’s voice carried from the wall, light and precise.

"Cute. Does the afternoon block still exist, or are we filing this under primary demonstration and sending me home?"

Gianna glanced over her shoulder.

"You’re still on the slate he asked for. Show up and be useful."

"Oh, I will."

Rei’s eyes flicked to my mouth, then to Gianna’s back, then to me.

"Night terms are still yours, Revien. Today just made them more educational."

I didn’t answer that.

Gianna left first.

The door sealed behind her with a soft hydraulic sigh. The anchor channel remained, steady, elevated, marked by a claim that had nothing to do with Jenna’s schematic and everything to do with who she was willing to be seen choosing in front of a rival.

Rei took her time gathering her bag.

She paused at the mat edge and tipped her head toward the wrinkled front of my tank.

"She kissed you like a warning," Rei said.

"To me. Or to you. Hard to tell."

"Does it matter which?"

"It matters if you think a closed-mouth claim settles the dual feed."

She adjusted the strap on her bag.

"It doesn’t. Tomorrow we share a stress envelope. Try to keep your primary from turning every distribution problem into a loyalty test."

"Try to keep your pressure from turning every gap into a claim," I said.

Rei’s smile sharpened.

"See? We’re already practicing."

I smiled.

"Then we are in sync."

Rei moved closer.

Not the wide, testing circle she used before a spar.

A straight line into my space, until the heat of training and the faint blood ghost of her earlier constructs sat in the same breath as mine.

Her hand lifted and traced the line of my jaw with two fingers, light, deliberate, more inventory than affection.

"...You know, Revien," she said, "for someone so devoted, your actions speak differently than what your body does."

"It’s my curse to carry."

I didn’t pull away from the touch. I also didn’t lean into it.

"That doesn’t mean you aren’t wanted."

"Aww."

The sound was soft and sharp at once.

"You’re even consoling me."

Her thumb rested near the corner of my mouth, where Gianna’s claim still felt present.

"And when that awaited night comes, you will fuck me even though you would have just kissed Gia moments before."

I looked into her eyes.

She knew exactly what she was doing, pressing the bruise, naming the ugliest efficient version of the schedule, watching for the flinch that meant the primary still owned all my language.

"This won’t work," I said.

"You already tried the lowest-point version on the phone. When it comes to sleeping together, we will do it as training."

"Oh, I will make sure you enjoy it." Her smile widened a fraction. "But it’s so funny seeing you talk."

I frowned.

"What does that mean?"

"I mean—" Rei tipped her head, ponytail sliding across one shoulder, fingers still at my jaw— "Didn’t you fuck Jenna that day? I saw the reports on Gina’s table. Residual spikes. Private residential session. Regulation logs that weren’t only regulation."

Her eyes glittered.

"Now you’re here playing couple with her daughter."

The laugh that left me was short and real.

"That’s also a curse."

"Honest."

"Practical."

I caught her wrist, not hard, just enough to stop the tracing before it became a second claim on top of the first.

"Jenna is my handler. She’s also the reason I’m not in a containment file. What happened there was control work with a cost and a ceiling. It isn’t a script I’m running on every woman who stands on this mat."

"And Gianna?"

"Gianna is primary."

"And me?"

"You’re on the slate I asked for. You’re in the work. You’re not a substitute I pull when she leaves the room."

Rei studied my grip on her wrist, then my face.

The training hall felt larger with only the two of us in it, white lights hard on the mirrors, the wrinkled front of my tank still showing where Gianna’s fist had been.

"How many women are you going to take?" she asked.

No buildup or moral theater.

The same straight-line curiosity she brought to blood budgets and residual theft.

"Ten."

The answer left faster than I meant it to.

Rei’s brows lifted.

"That was fast. You talk like you already decided."

"Not on who."

I released her wrist.

The system’s ultimate objective sat at the back of my thoughts like a second clock: two years, cascade, network, the names already flagged and the eight still missing.

"But yes. I decided. The structure doesn’t run on one. The exam doesn’t. The gates won’t. Pretending otherwise is how people like me end up owned by a single household or broken across a vacuum."

"Am I in that ten?"

"You’re second."

For a moment, Rei said nothing.

Then a low sound escaped her, almost a laugh, almost a scoff.

"You’re flattering me."

"I’m ranking exposure and trajectory, not writing love letters."

I stepped back enough to put clean air between us without making it a retreat.

"Primary is Gianna. You’re the second confirmed candidate on a list the system is forcing into existence, whether I like its shape or not. That isn’t romance. It’s the board as it stands."

"Second is still a place."

She flexed the fingers I had held, as if checking the residue of the contact.

"Most supports in this sector would kill to be a fixed slot on a rewrite-class network. You’re standing here trying to make it sound like logistics."

"It is logistics."

"It’s also you telling me I matter enough to keep after she kissed you in front of me like a border marker."

Rei’s gaze dropped to my mouth again, then lifted.

"Does she know about the ten?"

"Not in those terms."

"Then you’re still managing information."

"I’m still surviving a class that eats single-point dependency and a countdown that doesn’t care about my preference for clean stories."

I picked my coat up from the bench and didn’t put it on yet.

"You wanted honesty without the wounded monologue. There it is. Ten anchors. She’s first. You’re second. The rest are unassigned. Night training stays on my terms. Daytime work stays on Jenna’s schematic. If you need that to be an insult, I can’t stop you. If you can use it as a schedule, we keep progressing."