Then the blood dried at my hairline.
Then she wraps her arms around me so hard I wheeze.
“You’re not allowed to die,” she says into my shoulder. “That’s the rule. I just made it up.”
“Add it to the bylaws,” I mutter.
She pulls back, eyes bright and feral.
“Okay,” she says. “I have six vans. Two cargo trucks. Three medics. And thirty-seven people who will absolutely commit felonies for you.”
“Perfect,” I reply. “Let’s commit them efficiently.”
By nightfall, the ruins of the Grill look less like a grave and more like a command post.
We string work lights off portable generators.
Someone sets up folding tables with maps and radios.
Ishaan shows up with a convoy of supplier trucks and a grin that belongs in a recruitment poster.
“I liberated some antibiotics,” he announces cheerfully. “And a lot of canned soup.”
I grab his face and kiss his cheek.
“You are a hero.”
“I know.”
We open the tunnel entrance behind the old walk-in freezer.
The hatch groans like it’s angry we’re waking it up.
Cold air breathes up out of the earth, carrying the smell of wet stone and old dust and secrets my family kept better than any bank vault.
I lead the first group down myself.
Flashlight in one hand.
Radio in the other.
Heart hammering with something that feels like terror and purpose welded together.
By midnight, we’ve moved sixty people off-grid.
By three a.m., it’s one hundred and eighty.
By dawn, there are armed civilians posted at the street corners around the Grill, and former Nine foot soldiers offering their services in exchange for amnesty and hot food.
Death threats pour into my comms.
Bounties get posted.
My face starts showing up on wanted boards.
Someone spray-paints my name next to the resistance sigil.
I don’t take it down.
