The shield hums softly around me, but I don’t feel hidden.
I feel anchored.
Because I know—absolutely know—that just outside this room, Voltar is waiting. Arms crossed. Jaw tight. Listening for my voice like it’s a signal flare.
I look straight ahead.
“Big Otto built his empire on the assumption that people like me would look away,” I say. “That we’d decide it wasn’t our problem. That survival meant silence.”
Otto glares.
I don’t flinch.
“I looked,” I continue. “I saw. And I refused to disappear.”
My voice carries. Clear. Unwavering.
“You tried to scare me. Intimidate me. Erase me. And I’m still here.”
The room is silent now.
“I am not special,” I finish. “I am not brave in some mythic way. I am simply unwilling to let people like you decide who gets to live without consequence.”
I lower my hands.
“That’s my testimony.”
The judge nods slowly.
Otto slumps back in his seat.
And for the first time since Glindora, I feel something inside me settle into place.
When the session adjourns, the shield dissolves.
The courtroom blurs.
I step out—and there he is.
Right where I knew he’d be.
Waiting.
The courthouse steps are warmer than I expect.
Sun-heated stone, faintly gritty under my palms when I sit, like the building itself has absorbed decades of tension and decided to radiate it back out into the world. The air smells like ozone from the shield generators and something sweeter drifting in from a street vendor down the block—fried dough, maybe, or spiced oil. Normal city smells. Life smells.
Recess.
That word feels surreal after everything inside that room.
I step out into the light and for half a second my knees threaten to give out. Not because I’m scared anymore—because I’ve been holding myself upright on pure will for hours and my body finally noticed.
“Easy,” a familiar voice murmurs.
Voltar’s there instantly, one hand hovering near my elbow, not touching unless I need it. He learned that about me fast. I hate being steadied unless I choose it.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically.
