“You stay put. I ghost this terminal, relocate the cache, bounce a few more pings off decoys so they don’t trace it back to here. Then we go dark. No comms. No feeds. Let the firestorm burn without giving them new fuel.”
“And us?” Roja asks.
She shrugs. “Depends. They might try to scrub you. Or flip it on you. But with this much light, someone up top’s gonna want a fall guy—and you’re not it.”
I wipe my palms on my thighs. They’re slick with sweat. “I just… I want to breathe without looking over my shoulder.”
“You will,” Roja says.
I look at him, and something in me steadies. Not all the way. But enough.
Ceera’s rig beeps again—hard. She jolts. “They’re trying to throttle the node feeds. Some Coalition netcrawlers just spiked the data walls.”
“Can you block them?” I ask.
“I already rerouted the backbone. They’ll waste hours chasing ghosts.”
Roja’s already moving. He snatches my coat from the hook. “We don’t wait. We move.”
I take it, fingers fumbling the zipper. “Where?”
“A friend. Off-grid. We’ll lay low while this burns hot. Let them choke on the truth.”
Ceera’s typing furiously. “Go. I’ll clean up. Meet me at fallback three tomorrow night.”
Roja nods. “Good work.”
Ceera grins around her stim. “Damn right it is. Now get your human out of my nest.”
I squeeze her arm as we pass. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. If they find this place, I’m joining you in exile.”
I don’t look back. Roja’s hand finds mine as we slip into the hallway, tension curling around us like a second skin. The night outside’s gone loud—sirens, shouting, the hum of surveillance drones cutting the air into electric threads.
But I’m walking free.
For the first time since I burned the man who bought me, I feel the weight shift. Not gone. But shared.
And gods help them all, because I’m not hiding anymore.
It starts with silence.
The kind that creeps into your bones and sits there, cold and mean. No club thump from the Coil. No screeching laughter echoing down the alley. Just a brittle, awful stillness like the city’s holding its breath, waiting to see which way the hammer falls.
I pace Ceera’s fallback safehouse—third-floor walkup over a noodle shop that smells like burnt garlic and desperation. My boots creak against the warped floorboards. Roja sits by the window, red eyes fixed on the street below, where protestors ripple like a tide outside the admin buildings. They’ve got signs. Fire. Rage.
But no one’s come to arrest us. Not yet.
“You see anything?” I ask.
Roja’s tail flicks once. “Three more drones since this morning. One circled twice.”
I stop, heart thudding. “Military?”
“Too shiny. Admin-grade. But they’re listening.”
He doesn’t turn his head when he says it. Doesn’t need to. His voice is gravel-wrapped steel—low, steady, the way only someone used to being hunted can manage.
