Greenport feels wrong the second we step inside.
Not damaged. Not broken. Not bleeding.
Just… off.
It’s the kind of wrongness you can’t point to right away, the kind that settles under your skin and refuses to leave. The gates slide shut behind us with their usual hydraulic hiss, and for a moment I almost expect alarms. Shouting. Controlled chaos. Some visible sign that everyone else feels it too.
Instead, I get laughter.
A group of soldiers lounge near a supply truck, boots propped up on crates like they’re on vacation. Someone has a speaker balanced on a railing, music thumping low and lazy through the air. Two recruits stand near the barracks entrance arguing over protein bars like it’s the biggest problem in their world. A lieutenant I know better than this is smiling. Smiling. Like the man who orchestrated half the bloodiest operations in the region wasn’t supposed to be rotting in holding right now waiting for questioning.
No urgency.
No edge.
No tension.
No discipline.
Like they think it’s over.
Like they think we won.
I hate it.
My jaw tightens as we walk, my boots striking the pavement harder than necessary. Every instinct I have is screaming that this isn’t right. Victories don’t look like this. Not real ones. Not when the enemy disappears into silence and nobody’s got a body count they trust.
“What’s with everyone?” Delilah murmurs beside me, her eyes scanning the base the same way mine are. Alert. Uneasy. Searching for something she can’t name yet.
“Victory hangover,” I mutter. “Happens every time people think the worst is behind them.”
She frowns. “But it’s not.”
“No,” I agree quietly. “It never is.”
We move deeper into the compound, passing offices, armories, med bay entrances. Every step makes the pressure in my chest tighten. I keep waiting for something to snap into focus. For the wrongness to reveal itself. For somebody to say the one sentence I don’t want to hear.
Then I see him.
King is in the armory, sitting on one of the metal benches under harsh fluorescent lights. Weapons line the walls behind him in perfect rows. The room smells like oil and steel and gunpowder. Too clean. Too orderly.
He’s hunched forward slightly, elbows braced on his knees.
In his hands is his knife.
He’s cleaning it.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Methodically.
Like he has all the time in the world.
Like nothing is wrong.
Like he isn’t sitting at the center of the biggest unanswered question on this base.
