Week five inside Walker Corporation.
The bond had entered a new stage.
Neither of them was pretending not to notice.
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Damian's section.
The proximity awareness was sharper now.
He knew when Kendrick entered the building.
Not the floor.
Not the room.
Just the building.
A warmth that settled into the air differently when Kendrick was in it.
He had been told about this stage by Dr. Yuen — the specialist he had been seeing remotely and quietly for two years, the person who had helped him manage what the suppressants couldn't.
Stage four, she called it.
When proximity awareness deepened into something that went past chemistry.
When the bond found a layer below the surface level and settled there.
He had been afraid of this stage.
Not this specific moment — he had been afraid of the concept of it for years.
The way it would make him traceable.
