I grinned and pushed through the doors.
Braxton's training chamber was a wide open space of reinforced concrete and hanging equipment, scarred with the marks of a hundred failed exercises. He was standing in the center of it, unlit synth-cigarette dangling from his lips, watching me with those tired eyes that saw way too much. He looked like a man who'd been up for three days straight and had stopped caring about it around hour thirty.
"You're back," he said.
"Miss me?"
"Like a hole in my head." He flicked the cigarette between his fingers. "You disappeared for three days. No word. No explanation. The VHC's been sniffing around asking questions I don't have answers to, which means I've been lying to some very dangerous people to cover for a student I'm not even sure I like."
"You like me."
"I tolerate you. There's a difference." He walked a slow circle around me, studying me the way he'd studied me before, cataloging. But this time something in his expression sharpened. "Huh."
