He waves me off like I’m smoke in his eye. “Go. And Kelsea?”
“Yeah?”
“Be smart.”
I smile, all teeth. “Always.”
Outside his office, I walk steady.
But my lungs are screaming.
I make it to the dressing room, close the door behind me, and lean hard against it, hands shaking. My skin’s too tight. Like my own body doesn’t fit right anymore.
He knows.
Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he’s just guessing.
But either way, the walls are shrinking again.
And I swore I was done running.
Later that night, I stare at the ceiling in my flat. I don’t sleep.
I lie there with the scarf wrapped tight in my fist, the edges frayed from too many nights of needing it more than I want to admit. The light from the comm unit still glows faint beside the bed, that message from Roja long gone, but burned behind my eyes anyway.
I know where he works.
The shipyards run twenty-four, staggered crews working in rust and steam. I wait until I know his shift’s running—fourth bell, cold side—and I pull my hood low, scarf wrapped loose like a promise around my throat, and walk.
The yards hiss and groan as I enter—giant beasts sleeping with their stomachs full of machines. Oil slicks glint under my boots, and the reek of weld smoke clings to my skin before I even pass the first row of scrap haulers. Sparks dance in the distance, and somewhere, someone’s yelling over the roar of a plasma torch.
I find him near the south end, bent over a power coupler the size of a coffin, his arms bare and braced as he rewires something too expensive for someone like me to touch.
“Roja,” I call, voice low.
His head snaps up, eyes hard before they soften. Barely.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I needed to talk.”
His jaw tightens. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Well, I am.”
He wipes a hand down his face, leaves a streak of grime across his cheek. “It’s not safe.”
“Nothing is right now.”
He gestures me toward the shadows near the storage crates. Away from sightlines. Away from ears.
“You’re being watched,” he says.
I laugh, bitter. “No kidding. Bresh pulled me into his office tonight. Said inspectors might be coming through. Coalition types. Wants me to either show papers or vanish.”
His hands still. Completely.
“When?”
