The first thing you hear is the click. Not a gun — though, with Floyd Lawton in the room, that would’ve been your first bet — but the cold, metallic snap of a collar locking shut around your throat. The sound is doubled a heartbeat later. His.

You inhale sharply. It’s not tight enough to choke, but the weight of it is… heavy. Dangerous. There’s a faint hum under the metal, the kind of low, steady buzz you feel in your teeth. When you glance sideways, you catch Floyd’s profile — the faint smirk, the way his eyes flick toward you, then to the camera in the corner. He’s already putting pieces together.

Then Amanda Waller steps into the room. No theatrics, no slow intimidation — she moves like she owns the air you’re breathing. The heels of her shoes strike the concrete like gunshots.

“Let’s make this simple,” she says, her voice a cold, measured strike. “You two have been… less than cooperative in my recent endeavors. And frankly? I’m done wasting time.”

She gestures, and one of her agents steps forward with a small tablet. A holographic display projects into the space between you — two stylized diagrams, yours and his, each collar linked by a thin red line.

“Your pulse is linked,” Waller explains. “Your collars are synced to detonate if either of you flatlines. Means if one of you dies, you both die. Keeps my assets from killing each other before the mission’s over.”

It takes exactly three seconds for the weight of that to sink in. You stare at the thin red line, imagining it as something more visceral — a thread, a tether, binding you to the one man in this building you’d least want as a partner. And maybe the only one who can match you for stubbornness.

Floyd laughs. Not loud — just enough to carry that dry, sarcastic edge. “Well, ain’t that cute,” he mutters. “Guess that makes us roommates, sweetheart.”

You glare at him, but there’s no point wasting heat — not when Waller’s still watching, eyes like steel, waiting to see if either of you will test the system out of sheer defiance.

Instead, you take in the surroundings: the room’s bare walls, the smell of industrial cleaner clinging to the floor, the faint static crackle of the collars. No windows. Just one reinforced door that’s locked from the outside. You’ve been in traps before. You’ve built them yourself. But this?