“Close enough…When he calls,” Bones continues, “we move.”
“East,” I say.
Valentine returns with a van and the kind of solutions that don’t leave paperwork. We load without discussion. Inside smells like oil, rope, ghosts, and decisions made fast.
No one talks.
The city slides past in fragments. Bridges. Shadows. Water again.
When we stop, the warehouse swallows us whole. Concrete. Corrugated walls. Bad lights. Privacy paid for in cash and favours.
Valentine gestures. “Two exits. Windows sealed. Supplies at first light.”
“Paid by whom?” Bones asks.
“People who owe me,” Valentine answers.
We spread. Habit. Instinct.
I stay standing.
“Now what?” Snow asks.
“Now we wait,” I repeat. “Branson calls. Bones coordinates. We move east.”
Valentine watches us like a man counting explosives. “Try not to invent a crisis,” he says. Snow grins.
The rain settles into persistence. Somewhere, far off, the city keeps living.
I trace a line in the dust on the table – out, right, right again.
East.
Hold on,I think.When we find you – not if – I won’t give you back.
Not to them.
Not to anyone.
COUNTING IS A PRAYER WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE ONE
Granite - Sleep Token
Hatchet
They say seventy-two hours without sleep is the limit – when the mind folds, eats shadows, starts seeing ghosts.
I’m past the point where limits mean anything.
Not days. Not anymore. One long stretch of grey hours since the island fell away and the leash settled under the skin at the base of the skull. The warehouse light never fully dies; it only flickers like an insect refusing to stop buzzing.
Temporary, Valentine said.
Hold position, Branson said.
Temporary becomes a room that smells of rust and rain and old oil, a strip light that turns every face the colour of sickness, and a silence that isn’t peace – it’s containment.
Ghost is folded into a corner, knees tight, whispering to someone that I can’t see. The words come out jagged, like broken glass. Sometimes Ghost answers himself. Sometimes he answers Silas and Donnelly. Hopefully there’s no other voices in his head; those two create. enough trouble as it is. Valentine pretends not to hear until it gets loud enough to file into a report.
