They came back at noon.
Not with a battering ram.
With a folder.
Two medics in pale gray. One tech cart with cases of sealed equipment. Four officers with rifles slung at "safe" angles that still pointed at every heartbeat in the hallway.
And Mercer, carrying paperwork like it was armor.
Nora opened the door the same way she always did now.
Two inches.
Enough to see.
Not enough to invite.
Kaelen stood behind her, silent heat held in a shape that looked like discipline and carried the pressure of a loaded gun.
Rix sat on the arm of the couch, one boot on the cushion like he didn't believe in furniture rules. His eyes tracked every movement in the hall.
Zane was at the counter, making coffee like this was a normal Tuesday and not a quarantine negotiation.
The hallway camera blinked red.
Mercer nodded at it like he hated it. "Miss Nora."
"Nora," she corrected.
Mercer's mouth tightened. He held the folder up, keeping it out of her reach.
"Protective placement," he said. "Voluntary relocation to a secured site. Medical evaluation. Stabilization planning."
"Soft jail," Rix murmured.
Mercer ignored him.
"Safety," Mercer insisted. "For you. For the public."
Zane set a mug down on the counter with a quiet clink. A small, human sound in a hallway full of weapons.
"Safety for your chain of command," he said, still calm. "Not for her."
Nora watched Mercer's fingers on the folder.
Knuckles white.
A man who liked control hated losing it in public.
Nora didn't waste time on anger.
Anger was expensive. She was learning what to spend.
She stepped back from the door.
Not retreat.
Invitation.
Just enough room for the hallway camera to see inside, and for Mercer to see the line he wasn't allowed to cross.
Kaelen shifted.
The air warmed.
Nora lifted her hand without looking at him.
Two fingers.
A signal.
Behind her, Kaelen stopped.
He didn't like it.
But he obeyed it.
Nora turned to the living room wall.
The one she'd already started using as a rule-board.
There was tape. Marker. A cheap whiteboard she'd stolen from a supply closet months ago when she'd still been pretending she was only running a clinic for broken people, not kings.
At the top, in thick black letters, it read:
THE ARK.
Under it—
Rules.
Not poetic. Not cute.
Clean lines that didn't leave room for interpretation.
Nora grabbed the whiteboard.
It was heavier than it should've been, because it wasn't just plastic.
It was a boundary made physical.
She carried it to the door and angled it so Mercer—and every camera in the hallway—could read.
Mercer's eyes flicked over the list. His expression tightened with every line.
Rix leaned forward, delighted.
Zane's gaze stayed on Nora, sharp and unreadable, like he was watching her grow a spine in real time.
Nora tapped the first rule with the marker.
"Before you talk about placement," she said, "you read my terms."
Mercer's jaw worked. "Ma'am, we have federal authority—"
"You have guns," Nora corrected. "And paperwork. Authority is what people agree to obey."
Kaelen's heat surged at her back, approval rolling off him like weather.
Nora kept her voice steady.
"You want my cooperation," she said. "You want him stable."
She tapped the board again.
"Then you negotiate."
Mercer's eyes slid to the hallway camera, then back.
He looked like he wanted to hate her.
He looked like he couldn't afford to.
"Read them," Nora said.
It wasn't a command.
It was a test.
Mercer inhaled once. Then, stiffly, he read.
"Rule one," Mercer said, voice flat. "'No restraints. No collars. No sedatives administered without consent.'"
He paused—tiny.
Nora didn't blink.
"Rule two," Mercer continued. "'No separation. If Nora moves, the Ark moves.'"
Rix's grin widened like a knife.
"Rule three," Mercer read. "'No touch. No one touches Nora without permission. No one touches Kaelen without permission.'"
Mercer's mouth tightened harder. He glanced at Kaelen, then corrected himself like he'd swallowed a shard.
"—without Nora's permission," he finished.
Kaelen's gaze sharpened.
Possession flared.
Then he caught Nora's posture—calm, unyielding—and swallowed it back down.
Self-control, paid in silence.
It sang in the air like tension in a wire.
She let her fingers brush Kaelen's wrist behind her.
A tiny reward.
A promise that she saw him holding the fire.
Kaelen didn't look down at her hand.
He only breathed, slow.
Mercer kept reading.
"Rule four," he said. "'No orders. Requests only. If you want something, you ask. If you threaten, you lose access.'"
That one made Mercer's nostrils flare.
"Rule five," Mercer read, voice thin. "'No cameras inside the residence. External recording only.'"
Zane's mouth curved. "Good luck."
Mercer stared at the board like it offended his entire religion.
"This is not how protective placement works," he said finally.
Nora tilted her head. "Then I don't go."
Mercer's gaze sharpened. "You're not the only variable."
"You're right," Nora said.
She turned slightly so Mercer could see Kaelen in the doorway behind her.
Not looming.
Not prowling.
Standing like a man who had decided to behave because Nora had asked.
Nora didn't raise her voice.
She didn't need to.
"You saw what happens when you treat him like a problem," she said. "Now you're seeing what happens when you treat me like a person."
Mercer's eyes flicked to the dart mark on Kaelen's shoulder. The black tip was gone now—burned out or ripped free. The skin around it was already closing, angry and healing too fast.
A reminder.
Mercer swallowed.
"Command will not accept these terms," Mercer said.
Nora's smile was small.
"Then Command doesn't get me," she replied.
Rix chuckled. "She's learning."
Zane sipped his coffee. "She learned yesterday. You're the one catching up."
Mercer's jaw tightened.
He looked past Nora, as if hoping to find a softer person in the apartment.
There wasn't one.
Only three men who would burn cities for her and one woman learning to make them wait.
Mercer lowered the folder slightly.
"This city can't handle him," Mercer said. "We can't have another incident."
Nora's mind flashed to the news footage.
To the way the world had already eaten seven seconds and asked for more.
"They'll handle him fine," Nora said. "If they stop trying to provoke him."
Mercer's eyes narrowed. "And if you lose control?"
Nora's pulse stayed steady.
"I don't," she said.
Kaelen's breath hitched behind her.
Not because he doubted her.
Because the sentence was an intimacy. A claim.
Nora didn't soften it.
Mercer's radio crackled. He listened, jaw flexing.
Then he spoke like he was swallowing something bitter.
"Command is willing to negotiate," Mercer said. "Conditional."
Nora held his gaze. "Conditional how?"
Mercer lifted his chin toward the end of the hallway, where two more officers were setting up a portable stand—lights, a microphone, a backdrop like a press briefing.
"Public demonstration," Mercer said. "A controlled environment. Proof of stability. You demonstrate that you can instruct him to disarm and accept restraint protocol."
Rix's eyes went bright. "There it is."
Zane's voice went flat. "They want a show."
Kaelen's heat surged so hard Nora's skin prickled.
Nora raised her hand again—two fingers, calm.
Kaelen didn't move.
But the air tasted like lightning.
Mercer watched the gesture, and for a second, his face was almost human.
Wonder.
Fear.
Then he buried it.
"It's not punishment," Mercer said. "It's reassurance. If you want to keep living here without escalation, you prove you can—"
"Put him in chains," Nora finished.
Mercer didn't deny it.
Nora stared at the portable lights.
At the microphone.
At the way the city loved cameras more than truth.
She could refuse.
They would come back with harder tools.
She could comply.
They would call her the remote and use her until she broke.
She needed—
Terms.
A treaty that made their hands visible.
Nora looked at Mercer.
"Tomorrow," she said.
Mercer's eyes sharpened. "Today."
Nora's smile was thin.
"Tomorrow," she repeated. "And you bring your 'restraint protocol' for the camera. So the world sees exactly what you meant."
Mercer hesitated.
Zane's quiet voice slid under it. "Do it. If you want to keep claiming you're the good guys, you don't get to hide the leash off-screen."
Rix laughed, low and pleased.
Mercer swallowed.
"Fine," Mercer said. "Tomorrow. Parking level two. Temporary command post. Noon."
Nora nodded once.
"And one more term," she added.
Mercer's eyes narrowed. "What?"
Nora stepped closer to the door, letting the hallway camera catch her face.
"If anyone raises a weapon at him," she said, "I walk."
Mercer's mouth tightened.
Nora didn't flinch.
"You want stability," she said. "Then you don't poke the gun and call it science."
Mercer stared at her a long beat.
Then he nodded, once. Sharp.
"Understood," he said.
He backed up.
The hall exhaled.
Not relief.
Preparation.
When Mercer was gone, the portable lights stayed.
The hallway camera stayed.
The city stayed hungry.
Nora shut the door.
For two seconds, the apartment was quiet.
Then Kaelen's voice came rough, controlled.
"They want to put a collar on me," he said.
Nora turned.
He was standing like a statue holding itself together.
Rix watched him like a wolf waiting for a fracture.
Zane's expression was unreadable.
Nora crossed the space and stopped in front of Kaelen.
Close.
Not touching yet.
A push.
A boundary.
Kaelen's eyes locked on her, starving.
Nora lifted her hand.
She brushed her knuckles along his jaw—one clean stroke.
A reward.
A permission.
Kaelen shuddered like she'd hit a nerve.
"You did well," Nora said softly.
One sentence.
No drama.
No praise that begged.
Just a fact.
Kaelen's eyes darkened. "For not killing them."
"For staying," Nora corrected.
His throat bobbed.
He wanted to kiss her hand.
He didn't.
Restraint, paid in blood.
Nora's fingers slid to his collarbone, pressed there for a beat.
"Tomorrow," she murmured, "you kneel because you choose to."
Kaelen's voice went lower. "I always choose you."
Rix made an irritated sound like a laugh.
Zane set his mug down a little too hard.
External pressure didn't wait for tomorrow.
Nora's phone buzzed on the counter.
She looked.
Another notification.
Another repost.
Another clip.
This one slowed down.
Zoomed in.
Her face.
Her mouth forming the word.
Kneel.
Captioned:
SHE OWNS HIM.
The comments were already building a cage out of worship and hatred.
Nora stared at the screen until it blurred.
Then she turned the phone facedown.
"Get some rest," she said.
And because the city didn't know how to stop watching, Nora wrote one more rule on the board in thick black ink:
NO ONE WRITES OUR STORY BUT ME.