[She’s perched in a branch just barely below his own, smaller and thinner to suit their difference in size; even so, the glare Dani shoots back up at him is a heck of a thing.

But Markus isn’t convinced. His mouth still tugged into a frown, he assesses the situation below — four raptors, one beginning to circle the tree, sometimes trying to hop up and scrape long claws against its trunk as gravity pulls it back down.]

I wasn’t planning on getting hurt, or doing anything recklessly. [Markus, the “yeet himself off of high places” android, okay.] But we have to do something, and I’m not about to put you in the proverbial line of fire. Not when we’re up here because of me.