First, I'm going to find Pebble. I'll search every alley, every basement, every possible hiding spot in a six-block radius.
Then I'm going to find proof. Real, concrete evidence that Janelle and her assistant sabotaged the petition. That they've been sabotaging other businesses too.
And then I'm going to take that evidence to the town council and make them listen.
I'm done being passive. Done letting fear control my choices.
Done pushing away the people I love because I'm too scared to admit I need them.
I head for the door. Pause with my hand on the handle.
Grath's window is visible from here. Still lit, even though it's nearly dawn.
Is he awake? Unable to sleep, just like me?
I could go to him. Right now. Could apologize and grovel and beg him to forgive me.
But I need to do this first. Need to prove to myself that I can fix things before I ask him to believe in me again.
So I turn away from his window. Step out into the cold morning air.
And I start searching.
For Pebble.
For proof.
For a way to save everything that matters.
CHAPTER 10
GRATH
The button sits in my palm. Small, brass, tarnished at the edges. One hole cracked clean through.
I found it in the dirt after my first arena fight. A child's jacket button, lost in the sand. I kept it because it reminded me that somewhere, people had ordinary lives. Lives with children and buttons and things that mattered beyond blood and roaring crowds.
Now it reminds me I'm an idiot.
I set it back in the cigar tin with the other tokens. Close the lid. The metal clicks shut with a finality that echoes in the empty rowhouse.
Empty except for me and the silence where Maris used to fill the spaces.
Not here, of course. She was never here. But her voice was. Her laughter carried through the walls when she worked late at the café. The smell of coffee and pastry drifted through the window. The knowledge that she existed just a few steps away made this place feel less like a hiding spot and more like home.
Now it's just walls again.
I scrubbed the floors this morning because I didn't know what else to do with my hands. Organized the shelf where I keepthe few possessions I own. Folded the blanket the kitten used to sleep on, then unfolded it because the neat edges felt wrong. Too tidy. Too much like giving up.
The kitten is still gone. Three days now.
Maris won't answer my messages. I've sent four. Each one shorter than the last because I ran out of words that didn't sound like begging.
I don't know how to beg in a language that makes sense to humans anyway.
In the arena, you fought or you died. You didn't plead. You didn't negotiate. You survived by being stronger, meaner, faster than whatever wanted to break you.
Here, I can't fight my way through this.
