But there’s nothing.
Just emptiness.
The panic rises again, thick and suffocating. I stand abruptly, driven by instinct rather than logic. I pull my comm tablet from my pocket and flick it on. Notifications explode across the cracked screen—news alerts, messages, missed calls, interview requests.
My face is everywhere. Headlines rage in red letters:
HOLONET STAR LIORA Bevins– MISSING AFTER MAZE COLLAPSE!
REAPER COMPANION STILL UNACCOUNTED FOR – BODY NOT FOUND.
SABOTAGE SUSPECTED – INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY.
I swallow hard. My throat burns.
Then another alert flashes:
UNIDENTIFIED ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED IN COLLAPSED MAZE. SEARCH SUSPENDED.
Suspended. That word lands like a blow.
They’re not looking for him anymore.
My fingers tighten around the tablet until the casing creaks. I shut it off and tuck it away. If I’m going to stay safe—ifmy childis going to stay safe—I need to disappear. Completely.
I force myself to stand straighter. Breathe deeper. Make a plan.
One step at a time.
First: get off the grid. No more HoloNet. No more bank traces. No more public anything.
Second: hide the pregnancy. My coat hangs loose, but it won’t for long. I’ll need anonymity. Shadows. Sublevels no one maps anymore.
Third… survive. Somehow.
The undercity is a labyrinth—pipes hissing overhead, broken maglines buzzing with erratic sparks, the ground trembling with the pulse of distant reactors. I move through it silently, avoiding the eyes of scavengers and syndicate lookouts. Eventually, I reach a derelict housing unit wedged between two old transport lifts. The keypad is busted. Perfect. I pry it open and slip inside.
The air is stale. Dust dances in the thin shafts of light piercing the cracked windows. But the walls are intact, the door locks manually, and the utilities hum faintly beneath the floor.
Good enough.
I sink onto the bare mattress left behind by whoever last squatted here and curl on my side, muscles trembling from exhaustion. My hand drifts to my abdomen again.
And then—I freeze.
A flutter. Light. Strange. Like fingers brushing from the inside.
It steals my breath.
“Oh.” My voice breaks into a laugh that sounds more like a sob. “There you are.”
The movement comes again, stronger this time. Not painful. Just real.
I close my eyes. For the first time since waking, the panic recedes enough to let something else through.
Resolve. Fierce. Burning.
“I’ll keep you safe,” I whisper. “Even if I have to hide forever. Even if he never finds us.”
