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Fine. I turned back toward the screen.

Sera’n caught my arm—not hard, but firmly enough that I stopped.

“Do not.”

I looked down at his hand, then up at him. “Let go.”

He did immediately. That mattered. It also didn’t solve the bigger problem.

“You know something.”

“I know that you should stop.”

“Why?”

“Because these are not records you should have accessed.”

“I access reproductive files every day.”

“Not these.”

“Why are they in my system, then?”

His jaw tightened. Good question. I waited for the answer, and none came.

I looked at the screen again, my focus narrowing past the altered percentages and timestamps to the column of deceased identifiers. “What about the other warriors? The duplicate files. If mine was altered, theirs might have been too.”

“Talia.”

“I need the original versions.”

“No.”

“I’m not asking permission.”

“Yes, you are.” He drew himself taller, his shadow falling across the console. “You work under my authorization. You have access because I requested it. If I revoke that access, you cannot open anything.”

The words landed harder than I expected—not because he was wrong, but because suddenly the independence I’d spent months building felt small and brittle. A badge, a workstation, permissions someone else could turn off. I looked away before he could see that hit.

“So that’s it?”

“For now.”

“For now?”

“You found a discrepancy. You reported it. That is your responsibility.”

“My responsibility is making sure the records are accurate.”

“No,” he said, his voice low and final. “Your responsibility is the work assigned to you.”

Assigned.

I hated that word.

Sera’n knew I did.

He had been there the first time an administrator referred to my laboratory placement as temporary, as though I were a specimen being stored until another warrior became available.