He leans back. “No. I’m planning something else.”
I raise an eyebrow.
He points at the screen. “This evidence? It doesn’t go to the authorities. Not yet. I need to know how to use it—whento use it—without it backfiring.”
I stare at the glowing name again.
And the bile rises in my throat.
The room smells like metal and dust and something faintly burnt. My hands are slick with sweat, and I can still hear the sound of sirens in the back of my mind.
Roja watches me. He doesn't move.
I finally whisper, “It’s not over.”
“No,” he agrees. “It’s not.”
But he doesn’t reach for me.
He lets me sit with it, lets me feel the weight of the thing I tried to bury. That part of me that still screams when I sleep. That remembers the look on Joren’s face as he fell.
I don’t cry.
Not this time.
But gods, I want to.
CHAPTER 19
ROJA
I’m running out of shadows to hide her in.
The streets are tighter now. Less air. Less room to move without eyes crawling over your shoulders. Word travels fast in a place like Jark, and after the raid, I can feel it—like the whole damn city’s leaning in, sniffing for blood.
I can't keep her buried in my quarters. Not forever.
So I do what I promised myself I wouldn’t: I reach out.
It's a name I haven’t said in years. Buried deep in an old comm unit I never connected to any network. The kind of contact that doesn’t show up on registries. My last handler.
When the screen flickers to life, his face looks older, sicker—like the war finally got bored of him and decided to rot him from the inside out.
“Roja,” he says. That’s all. No ‘hello.’ No ‘you’re alive?’
“I need a favor.”
His laugh is a slow wheeze. “You disappeared. Burned your ID, vanished into factory work. And now you’re crawling back?”
“I wouldn’t if it wasn’t important.”
“What is it?”
I send the encrypted file. “Proof of bribery. Coalition cleric. Ties to Alliance family. They’re using it to come after someone. Innocent.”
His face tightens. “And you want?”
“For it to go public. Loud. Anonymous. Viral enough to light a fire under the governor’s ass.”
