“No,” Rook answered. “They don’t know a name. But they know it was a Daggermouth, a woman who tried to kill the Executioner. They know she stood with the prisoners and tried to stop it from the information that’s leaked into the Boundary already.”
Jameson closed his eyes briefly, resting his head on the back of his chair as he blew out a heavy breath toward the ceiling.
“She’s gonna hate that,” Samuels said with mild amusement. “If she makes it out of the Heart, she’s not going to be happy to find herself the face of a rebellion.”
“Not if,when,” Jameson corrected as he dragged his eyes back to the lieutenants in front of him.
Rook and Samuels exchanged a glance.
Jameson knew what they were thinking, knew the Heart never let anyone go. Especially not the woman who had tried to kill the heir. They knew as well as he did, that if they had not publicly executed her by now, the statement they planned to make with her was much larger than inciting fear. The silence lingering between the three of them was heavy, and he let it stretch, watching his commanders doubt him.
Rook broke it first. “Some of the younger rebels are talking about marching into the Heart.”
“With what army?” Jameson’s voice was sharp. “With what weapons? Shut down all talk of that from them immediately, we cannot have any rebels going rouge.”
“They’re desperate,” Rook said. “The food situation—” She stopped, jaw working.
“The food situation is critical,” Samuels finished for her. “We’ve got maybe a week of rations left for the camp, and that’s with cutting portions again. The Cardinals started refusing our credits. Word is the Heart put pressure on them. No trade or selling with the Boundary or they’ll cut the Cardinal’s shipments too.”
“They’re starving us out.” Rook’s voice had gone flat. “No need to waste bullets when hunger will do the job for them.”
Jameson stood abruptly, moving to the wall where the most detailed map of the city hung. His fingers traced the concentric circles—Heart at the center, Cardinal surrounding it, Boundary at the edges bleedinginto the wastelands. Neat divisions that determined who lived and who died based on nothing but location.
“We have other options,” he said finally. “My contact in the Heart went silent after Shadera’s capture, like most Heart informants, but I’ve got a lead on reconnecting.”
“The one smuggling medicine on Veyra vehicles?” Rook asked.
Jameson nodded. “They’ve been reliable for months. If I can reestablish contact, I’m going to try to expand the operation. Not just medicine anymore. Food. Weapons.”
“Risky,” Samuels observed. “Medicine is one thing. Small packages, low weight. Food is bulky. Harder to hide, harder to move. And weapons? That’s execution on sight, no questions asked.”
“Got a better idea?” Jameson turned back to them. “Because I’m all ears. Otherwise, we work with what we have.”
Neither answered. There were no better options. Just varying degrees of desperation. Outside, someone coughed—the rattling kind that meant infection, that meant one more name on the list of people they couldn’t save.
“There’s something else.” Jameson hesitated, the words like lead on his tongue. “The Veyra had drones following me yesterday, that’s why I didn’t come back here till now to be safe.”
“Shit.” Rook straightened. “You think they know about the camp?”
“If they did, we’d already be dead.” Jameson ran a hand through his silver hair. “But they’re looking harder than before. They were surveillance class, but they’ve been upgraded. They can fit in small, confined spaces now, can see through dense structures. They have heat tracking, facial recognition, mapping systems. They followed me halfway to the north checkpoint before I shot them down.”
“What are they mapping?” Samuels leaned forward.
“From what I could gather off the chips I salvaged, population density. Structural weak points. The kind of intel you gather before—” Jameson’s throat went dry.
“Before you level everything,” Rook finished, her scarred face going pale.
Jameson nodded. “The Heart is preparing for something, something big.”
“War?” Samuels asked.
“Or its aftermath. It wouldn’t be war for us, it would be systematic euthanasia. It would be mass murder.” Jameson turned back to the map, his eyes tracing the boundary between their district and the toxic wasteland beyond. “I want the bomb shelters prepared. All of them. The ones from before the partition still have their lead lining. Priority for children and medical staff.”
Rook’s sharp intake of breath was the only sound in the room. The bomb shelters were a relic of the time before New Found Haven, concrete bunkers buried deep enough to survive whatever had destroyed the old world. They’d been maintaining them as a last resort, a final sanctuary if the Heart ever decided the Boundary was more trouble than it was worth.
“You think they’d actually do it?” Rook asked quietly. “Sacrifice an entire ring?”
“I think Maximus Serel has never let human life stand in the way of control.” Jameson’s voice had gone cold. “And I think we need to be ready for anything.”
