Roja’s digging into something—deep, dark, dangerous. I can feel it in the way he moves. Slower, heavier, like he's carrying something wrapped in iron behind his ribs. He still shows up—silent, steady—but there's a shift. A tension in his jaw, a flicker behind his eyes like he’s tracking ghosts I can't see.
I don’t ask. Not yet.
But I notice things.
My comm unit starts glitching at odd hours. I’ll wake up to strange pings, encrypted files blinking across the holoscreen like static ghosts. Grolgath dialect, not one I recognize. Roja’s tongue, maybe. But twisted. Coded. Half of it doesn’t translateat all—just fragments of names, long chain numbers, and coordinates that go nowhere.
The first time I find one, I almost throw the damn device across the room. Instead, I pocket it and head to the burner kiosk on Fleet Row, slide in a few credits, and run a diagnostic. The AI won’t say much—just shrugs in its artificial, bored tone. “Backdoor trace. Coalition secure net origin. Masked well. Custom layer.”
Which is tech speak for: someone powerful is watching. Or someone dangerous is sending.
Either way, it stinks of things I’ve spent my life avoiding.
Roja doesn’t bring it up, so I don’t, either. But I feel it—between us, like a second shadow. He’s not just a welder. Not just a man who touches like he knows how fragile I am but doesn’t treat me like I’ll break.
He’s something else.
I think maybe he used to be somethingworse.
And it scares me.
But it doesn’t scare me enough to run.
Back at the flat, I scroll the encrypted message for the third time. It pings to life with a faint flicker—just numbers now. I try the decoder app. Nothing. I try feeding it through a translation net. No match.
The format looks military. Old but polished. Like something that was once scrubbed from the net and buried.
I toss the comm onto the couch and pace. Roja’s due any minute. My skin’s itching with the urge to say something, to confront him, toask.
But when he walks in—coat soaked from the rain, jaw clenched, eyes hollow—I don’t.
I just hand him a towel and a plate of reheated dumplings.
He grunts in thanks, doesn’t eat right away. Sits on the edge of the bed and leans forward, elbows on his knees.
“I found another one,” I say finally.
He doesn’t look up. “Another what.”
“Message. Same encryption. Grolgath script. It’s in my comm again.”
A pause. His breath drags in like it hurts.
“Did you open it?”
“Would I be telling you if I hadn’t?”
Now he looks at me. Really looks. His eyes aren’t red now. They’re something deeper. Blood wine and stormlight.
“It’s not meant to hurt you.”
“That’s not exactly comforting.”
“It’s protection.” He stands, steps closer. “Precautions. Threads I’m pulling, things I need to keep away from you.”
I fold my arms. “Then why send themtome?”
“I didn’t,” he says. “Not directly. But anyone watching me will assume you’re the weak link.”
