Zoe POV

I've stopped looking at the window. There's nothing out there worth watching—the perimeter lights, the patrol arcs, the same careful machinery I've already memorized—and watching it again won't make Noah arrive any faster. So I pace instead, four steps to the door and four steps back, while Iris sits behind my sternum and doesn't say anything useful.

The knock comes soft and short, barely a sound at all.

I'm on my feet before I've consciously decided to move. ...