Chapter 14
KENRON
The protest footage loops on the cracked display in the back of the prep kitchen. I watch myself speak, jaw tight, hands clenched around the mic like I could wring blood from it. The words boom from the cheap speakers: “We built this district with our hands, our fire, our sweat!”
It sounds powerful.
But it feels hollow now.
There’s broth bubbling on the back burner, scorched just enough to taste like ashes. I haven’t changed out the filters in two days. Everyone says the kitchen smells like roasted fennel and sharp cumin. I can’t smell anything but smoke and metal.
I scrub my palms against the towel tucked into my belt and shut off the screen.
I’m so goddamn tired.
Of being the voice. The banner. The battle cry.
I never wanted to be a hero.
I just wanted to cook.
And her.
My breath catches before I can stop it.
Kristi.
I bite down on the name like it’s glass in my mouth. It still cuts, but I won’t spit it out. Not yet. Not until I know what part of me is bleeding because of her, and what part’s already dead.
The council doesn’t care about any of us. Not really. They want optics. Compliance rates. Power charts with tidy little dips and spikes to present to shareholders. They don’t care that half my delivery manifests go missing in transit now, or that the sweetroot farmer stopped calling back.
They don’t care that we can’t get new filtration nozzles because “the parts are being rerouted to priority commerce zones.”
Bullshit.
They’re squeezing us. Softly. Slowly. Like watching someone drown by inches.
The restaurant’s still open—for now. But I know the look on our suppliers’ faces when they show up late, twitchy and apologizing. They’re scared. Of fines. Of blowback. Of being seen as loyal to the wrong people.
It’s not loyalty anymore.
It’s survival.
Last night, a group of loyal regulars came in. Sat at the corner table like always. Laughed like they meant it. Tried to order my father’s slow-cooked karkin stew. I didn’t have the spices for it.
They asked for her.
“Where’s Kristi?” one of them said. A woman. Half-Human, half-Voreni. Kind eyes. Used to bring her daughter in with her.
I didn’t think.
I just growled, “She’s not welcome.”
It came out like a curse. Too loud. Too hard.
The whole table went silent.
I caught the look in the kid’s eyes before they left—wide, confused, like she’d seen her favorite storybook flipped upside down.
I hated myself for it.
But I didn’t call them back.
Tonight, I stay late.
Staff’s gone. Lights dimmed. I’m cleaning out the dry storage myself. Crates of powdered resin. Stale spice bricks. A few tins of protein paste that expired last season.
When I step into the alley to dump the waste bin, I see it.
A red tag.
Slapped across the back door like a fresh wound.
Scheduled Inspection: Health Compliance Audit – 14 Days.
The ink’s fresh. The adhesive not even fully dry. No signature. No prior warning.
I scan it again. It glows hot on the metal.
This isn’t random.
This is a warning.
A message.
Or maybe something darker.
I peel it off slowly, fingers trembling. The sticker crackles like it’s got teeth.
Inside, the fryer hisses. The fridge door creaks open from a draft and shuts again on its own.
Everything feels like it’s watching me.
Waiting.
I fold the tag and tuck it into my apron pocket.
Back in the kitchen, I don’t turn the lights back on.
I just sit.
On the prep table. In the dark.
I listen to the machines hum. The pipes groan. The air filter buzz in that broken-offbeat rhythm.
And I think about the last time she touched my hand.
She’d been trembling. Just a little.
I didn’t pull away.
I should’ve.
But I didn’t.
And now we’re here.
And someone just marked my door.
And I don’t know what’s coming next.
“Fuck this,” I mutter, leaping down from the prep table. I need a walk to clear my head.
I grab a bottle of booze on my way out the door without thinking. But it just festers in my grip, unopened as I walk through the alien quarter. I find a terrace overlooking the borough and pause to reflect.
I sit on the old stone bench carved by my father’s hands, high above the district.
It’s quiet up here—real quiet, not the heavy kind that settles in a kitchen after everyone’s gone home, not the bruised silence between shouted words.
This quiet is thinner, older. It stretches out and leaves space for thoughts to curl up in the corners.
The terrace overlooks the old trade path. I used to walk it as a kid, barefoot and braver than I had any right to be. Back when things like spice deliveries and border skirmishes were just words grownups tossed around over the dinner pot.
Now everything’s about borders.
Borders between districts, between classes, between species, between me and her.
I don’t drink. Not tonight. I brought the bottle thinking maybe it’d help—but it sits unopened. I need my head clear. Need to feel every part of what’s breaking.
The bench still bears the burn mark of my father’s name—Vakutan script, etched deep into the stone. A vow. A tether. He used to say meditation wasn’t about peace; it was about remembering who you are when everything else gets loud.
I’m not meditating.
I’m remembering.
I lean forward, forearms resting on my knees, and breathe through my nose until I taste the old coppery scent of the terrace—the moss, the clay, the faint electric tang of rain that never came.
And there she is.
Kristi.
Not the woman from the forums or the reports or the vote tally that snapped our world in half.
The woman in my kitchen.
With citrus zest on her fingers and sugar burned across her knuckles because she refused to wear gloves while experimenting with the Vakutan caramelizer. I’d teased her about it. She rolled her eyes and called me bossy. Then she laughed when I burned my own thumb showing her the proper angle.
Her laugh. Fragile and reckless.
That memory’s a razor under the ribs.
I close my eyes and lean back until my spine kisses the cool stone wall behind me.
“I told you not to get involved,” I murmur.
I’m not talking to the air.
I’m talking to her. The version of her that still lives in my chest, curled tight and wounded, refusing to leave.
“You said you understood,” I whisper. “That you saw what they were doing.”
She hadn’t said she was different. That’s what made it worse. She let me believe it.
The city below hums like a dying star. Transport rails groan. Flickering lights dance over rooftops like ghosts looking for someone to blame.
I flex my hands and stare at my palms.
These hands were meant for knives and fire, for building warmth out of raw things. For feeding people. Not for fists. Not for banners.
Not for this.
But I’ve been on protest lines for weeks. Led meetings. Drafted petitions. Screamed until my throat cracked.
And still, none of that feels as hard as watching her walk out that last time.
No goodbye.
No excuse.
Just gone.
She had the nerve to send messages afterward.
I didn’t open them.
Not because I was done with her.
Because I’m afraid I’m not.
If I hear her voice, I might forget what she did.
If I see her face, I might remember what it felt like when she looked at me like I was something sacred.
And I can’t afford that.
Not when they’ve marked our back door.
Not when I’m being watched.
I reach for the bottle, unscrew the cap, and let the scent hit me—sharp herbs, resin, a hint of bitter root.
Then I set it down.
Not tonight.
I need to hurt clean.
“Why did you do it?” I ask the stars. “You knew what that vote meant. You had to know.”
But the stars don’t answer.
They blink back at me in silence.
Same silence she left in her wake.
I can still feel her hand in mine. Warm. Steady. Like maybe she was ready to choose something real.
She kissed me like I was the only still thing in a world spinning too fast.
I can’t get that kiss out of my head.
I exhale through clenched teeth and stand.
The terrace groans beneath my boots, but the bench holds steady.
“Forget her,” I say aloud.
It sounds like a lie.
I look down at the bottle one last time.
Then leave it on the bench.
Some ghosts don’t need summoning.
They already know where to find you.