“We have to go,” he pants. “You—you saw it, right? The feed?”
“No shit I saw it.”
“They’ve got him, they’re gonna—gonnakillhim in the square like it’s some kinda festival?—”
“I know what I saw.”
I grip the edge of the console so hard my knuckles go bone-white.
“We need to evac you now,” he insists. “If Marj knows you’re here?—”
“Shedoesknow.”
“Then we’re a target.You’rea target. If she thinks the Butcher’s girl is holed up in Kluzderfuvv, she’ll burn this place to the goddamn ground.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You can’t be serious?—”
“I said I’m not going anywhere.”
Tebbles stares at me like I’ve grown another head. His face is red. His voice goes soft like he’s trying not to yell. “This isn’t some backwater raid, Roxy. This isMarj. You know what she does to people who humiliate her? She’ll send in everything she’s got and then some. If you stay?—”
“Then tell the people to bunker in,” I snap. “Get them below ground. Arm who you trust. Lock down the external gates and jam incoming signals. I’ll handle the rest.”
“The rest?! What the fuck does that even mean?”
“I’m ending this.”
He grabs my arm, not hard, but enough to make me pause. “You’re not a martyr.”
I shake him off. “I’m not acoward.”
His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
He doesn’t follow me.
I march through the hall, the emergency lights painting everything in hell-red. We haven’t had real power since the last Hooves raid fried the solar cores, so half the town’s tech is running on jury-rigged patch systems and Vrok’s sheer stubbornness. Feels like that stubbornness is bleeding out of the walls with him gone.
The weapons locker is colder than it should be. Or maybe I’m just sweating spite. I key in my code and the door hisses open.
Inside: everything I’ve ever been.
Rifles, blades, grenade belts, reinforced armor. Smoke bombs, sonic disrupters, the prototype pulse launcher Vrok gutted two nights ago just to “see how it worked.”
I step in and stare.
The gear waits, silent. Familiar.
Like it knows I’ll pick it all up. Like it assumes I’ll armor up and charge in, ghost again behind a legend.
But I don’t move.
Not for a long time.
Then, slowly, I start unloading it all. Piece by piece. Laying it out on the table like an offering to something I don’t worship anymore.
The rifle. Too impersonal.
