"Uhhhh."
The sound came out of Sophia's room as I passed it. Not sleep. Not rest. The same fight I'd heard through a locked door earlier, only thinner now, worn down to something that had stopped pretending it could win.
I pushed my own door open slowly, easing the weight so the hinge wouldn't carry. The latch clicked once, soft, and the room took me in.
Melissa hadn't moved much. She'd turned onto her back, legs apart and both arms thrown wide, taking up the whole of a mattress she'd been sharing a few minutes back. Short white hair against the sheet. Breasts rising and falling with slow, even breaths. The soft inner skin of her thighs still faintly marked from earlier, a shadow of pressure that the light didn't hide. Her face was turned slightly toward the wall.
My comms was on the floor where I'd dropped it. I picked it up and went back out and left the door standing open behind me.
