Later, I sleep with a shockblade under my pillow. Tur doesn’t flinch when I reach for it in the dark after a noise. Doesn’t reach for his own. Just watches me settle and then pulls me close.
Our emergency bags are packed. Escape routes memorized. Dead-drop credits and identities scrubbed clean, ready to deploy. Contingency on top of contingency.
And yet…
There’s music in the kitchen again. Laughter at the bar. Somebody brought a dog in once and no one complained.
I hear a child giggle, and it cracks something in my chest I didn’t know was still closed.
This peace might not last.
But godsdamn it, I’ll fight to keep it.
CHAPTER 36
TUR
Kimberly is laughing when it starts.
Not a big laugh. Not one of her dangerous, feral ones. Just a quiet breath of sound through her nose, shoulder bumping mine as she leans over the hostess stand, signing off on a supply invoice.
“You’re telling me we paid twelve credits per bulb?” she says. “Tur, I could’ve stolen better lighting out of a collapsed transit tunnel.”
I snort. “You’re the one who said ‘no more theft.’”
“I saidlesstheft. That’s different.”
The front doors slide open behind us with their soft hydraulic sigh. I feel it before I hear it. That shift in pressure. That wrongness in the air. My shoulders tighten automatically.
Four of them walk in.
Alliance gray. Clean boots. Smiles that never reach their eyes.
“Ms. Fierson?” the lead one says, voice warm, bureaucratic, harmless as a receptionist’s.
Kimberly straightens. “That’s me. Can I help you?”
“Routine inspection,” he says, flashing a badge. “Regulatory compliance. Food safety, zoning adherence, post-conflict stabilization review.”
She arches a brow. “You people really love your nouns.”
He chuckles politely. “Occupational hazard.”
My claws itch.
Kimberly glances at me. Just once. A micro-check. You good?
I nod. Barely.
“Sure,” she says. “You want coffee first or are you planning to ruin my afternoon immediately?”
The man smiles wider. Too wide.
“I’m afraid this will only take a moment.”
He steps closer.
Too close.
