She was standing. Strapped in place. Dress whipping in the wind. Hair stuck to her mouth. Eyes closed.
The camera zoomed in. High resolution. HD clarity. The shift clung to every line of her. The collar was gone. But her name was still there. Carved into the posture. Into the breath she still hadn’t given them.
The ocean moved behind her. Waves crashing. Salt in the wind. It wasn’t close. It wasn’t Devane. It wasfar. Far enough that I knew, even before I looked for coordinates?—
I couldn’t reach her in time.They knew that.A speaker clicked on above me. Static. Then voice. Ellis.
“She’s beautiful when she breaks, isn’t she?”
I didn’t respond. The screen shifted. Another angle. A buyer walked into frame. Took out a pen. Signed a form.
Cloe didn’t move. But her eyes opened. And I knew she felt me watching. Knew I was there. And couldn’t stop it.
The hum returned. Looped through the speakers. Soft. Weak. Survival noise.
I stepped forward. Grabbed the chair. Flipped it. Let it crash to the floor. The screens stayed on. Cloe blinked once. Then again. Her lips parted. She didn’t scream. She hummed.
And I screamed for her. Not with voice. With the sound of a monitor shattering as it hit the wall. With the console crushed beneath the heel of my boot. With the blade I drove into the speaker that dared echo her breath.
They wanted me to see it. They wanted me to watch. They wanted me to know I was too late. And I was. But they were wrong about one thing. This wasn’t the end. This was the moment I stopped hunting them. And startederasingthem.
Cloe
He walked away like he hadn’t left a grave behind. The paper was still tucked into the waistband of the shift. I could feel it pressing against my stomach with every breath. Not large. Not thick. Just heavy.
Like proof.
Like a receipt.
I stood there. Arms chained. Ankles tight. Body shivering—not from fear. From wind. From exhaustion. From the slow unraveling of hours that weren’t counted anymore.
The man who’d offered the money didn’t linger. He never touched me. Didn’t need to. Because Ellis had already done that. He didn’t leave bruises. He left permanence.
I stared ahead. Not at the skyline. Not at the building behind it. At the space between things. The air just above the lights where no one ever looked.
Ellis paused before he reached the door. Turned his head. Not enough to face me. Just enough to speak.
“Tell him what she signed.”
Then he left. The door shut behind him. The chain swayed slightly in the wind.
The light from the city shimmered off the polished roof tiles. It hit my eyes and turned the edges of the world into a blur. I blinked, slow. Let the tears form. Let them dry without falling.
Because I wouldn’t give them water. I shifted my wrists. The shackles scraped bone. The paper bent slightly. Pressed harder against my skin. I reached for it with my breath.
I remembered what Wolfe said once—about breath being proof. About silence being a leash. About the collar meaning more when it wasn’t visible.
They’d stripped me of everything. But they’d given me this. Camille’s signature. A death warrant she didn’t know she waswriting. And now it was pressed to my skin like a brand. I didn’t need to open it. I already knew what it said.
It said:This is what power looks like when it thinks no one is watching.
It said:We let her go so we could kill her quietly.
It said:You’re next.
And I smiled. Because they thought I was an echo.
But I was a storm they hadn’t named yet. I stopped asking for rescue the moment they showed me what was left of Camille. They didn’t need to touch me after that. Not really.
