CHAPTER 25
ROJA
Weeks crawl by like old ghosts through rusted pipes—quiet, but never still.
The headlines fade faster than I thought they would. First the cleric’s sentencing, then a few talking heads blathering about justice and oversight like that means anything anymore. Within ten days, the coverage fizzles out entirely. You’d think a religious leader exposed for treason and executed would buy more airtime.
But no. News moves on. People move on. Screams become static.
The casino never reopens. Just sits there like a carcass, all flashing signs and broken glamour, cordoned off behind caution tape and denial. I pass it once. Just once. On the long way back from a parts exchange. It smells like ash and perfume. I don’t go near it again.
Then the offer comes.
Old boss from the yards sends a message wrapped in old loyalty codes. Short and formal. "We heard you’re back. Slot’s open. Good pay. Supervisor."
They want me to come home.
I stare at the message for a long time. Then delete it.
Three days later, I send back a single word: “No.”
I’m done building for them. Done pretending I didn’t see what those ships were meant for. Done scraping rust from a war machine and calling it work.
So I take what I can find—grunt jobs. Private contracts. I fix old security systems, reroute wiring, clean grease traps with a hydro-purge unit that rattles my teeth. It’s not noble. It’s not even clean. But it’s mine.
The days get long. My hands stay busy. I lose myself in the grit and the burn of it—because I’ve learned quiet can be a kind of healing, if you let it hurt first.
Every evening, I come back to the same two-room flat on the edge of the district where even the street cams are half-blind. The air always smells like dust and oil. No one checks in. No one knocks.
Kelsea’s almost always on the roof when I get home. She sits with one leg pulled up under her, the other swinging loose over the ledge like she’s got nowhere left to fall. She watches the skyline like it’s keeping secrets. Her eyes don’t blink as much anymore.
“Busy?” she asks one night when I come in with dirt ground so deep into my knuckles it’s turned them black.
“Only with crap work,” I mutter, tossing the tool bag onto the floor.
She snorts. “Better than getting shot.”
“Marginally.”
I flop down beside her on the roof. The metal’s cold through my shirt. She doesn’t move, doesn’t shift, but she glances sideways at me with that quiet little smirk I’ve started living for.
“What?” I ask.
“You stink.”
“Honesty. Nice.”
We fall into a comfortable silence. Below us, the city murmurs without screaming for once. Even the drones have started keeping their distance.
After a while, I say, “They offered me my old job back.”
Her eyes don’t leave the skyline. “Yeah?”
“Turned it down.”
Now she looks at me. “Why?”
“Because I’m not the man they want anymore.”
