Chapter 21
ROJA
The bastard’s face is everywhere.
Vasso, the Coalition cleric—smug bastard with palms dirtier than a drill pit—plastered across every nodefeed, every overhead broadcast, every projection wall from the Old Dock sector to the Garden Fringe.
Caught mid-sentence in a pixelated clip while shackled at the wrists, dragged down Coalition steps in front of a hundred screaming protestors.
They’re calling it an “unprecedented internal investigation.” That’s spin. That’s a lie.
They didn’t lift a finger until we forced their hand.
Kelsea sits behind me, quiet, blade across her lap like it belongs there. She hasn’t said much. Doesn’t need to. I can feel her breathing. Calm. Controlled. Dangerous.
I tilt my head, watching the clip again.
Vasso’s eyes flick around like a cornered rat, nostrils flaring, the kind of face that folds under pressure.
Coalition brass in full regalia stand stone-faced behind him—angling for optics, not justice.
The reporters bark questions. One protestor throws a vial of ink; it splatters across Vasso’s coat like blood.
“About time,” I mutter.
Kelsea doesn’t answer, but I hear the scrape of the blade edge against the floor as she sharpens it slow, methodical. Preparing.
I like that about her. No panic. No pretense.
I look out the safehouse window. The streets below are chaos—protestors chanting for resignations, executions, both. Smoke curls from trash bins lit on fire. The air’s thick with burnt ozone and sweat and righteous fury.
But none of this means we’ve won.
“Roja.”
Her voice cuts through the noise like a blade through silk.
I glance back. “Yeah?”
She doesn’t look up from the blade. “You’re twitching.”
I hadn’t noticed. My fingers flex like they want a weapon.
“They’ll retaliate,” I say.
“Let them try.”
There’s heat in her voice now. Not recklessness—resolve. It sits in her chest like a new organ.
I push away from the window. The rig Ceera left us buzzes on standby. I key through the static until I find the node-tracker. Blip. Blip. Red pings, five blocks down.
“Patrol sweep coming up east corridor.”
Kelsea stands, slides the blade into a sheath at her back. No hesitation.
I double-check the angle. Two officers. Uniformed. Casual. No mechs.
I look at her. “You stay here.”
She opens her mouth.
“Not a request.”
She closes it. Nods. That’s trust. Or something close.
I take the back stair, boots soft on the wood, claws flexed. The air out here is tighter, like it knows trouble’s hunting again.
I spot them before they spot me—two Coalition fielders, not local. Blue-plate armor. Too clean. Their gait’s wrong for this neighborhood. They stick out like broken teeth.
I melt into the alley shadow, tracking them from the edge. They pause near the noodle vendor on the corner. One pulls out a compad. The other starts showing pictures—faces. One of them is hers.
My vision sharpens. My hearing narrows to their words.
“Female. Human. Late twenties. Fugitive tag.”
“She’s here?”
“Someone thinks so.”
I step out of the shadow. Just a whisper of movement, but enough.
Both heads snap toward me.
“You lost?” I ask.
The tall one shifts stance. “Sir, we’re conducting an inquiry—”
I step closer. Not rushing. Not threatening. Just heavy. “You’re two blocks outside your patrol grid.”
The shorter one tenses. Hand near his baton.
I tilt my head. “Looking for someone?”
“We have reason to believe—”
“Don’t care.”
“We’re within our rights to—”
“You’re not.”
My voice drops to a growl, thick with something old and cold. “This block’s under union jurisdiction. You step farther in, you’ll have a neighborhood swarm.”
They glance at each other. We all know they weren’t expecting resistance. Especially not from someone like me.
“You obstructing an investigation?” the tall one dares.
“I’m stopping a mistake.”
They hesitate. The short one mutters something into his comm. Probably a supervisor. I watch their hands. Always the hands.
Then they back off. Not scared. But smart enough.
As they turn, I add, “Next time you show her face, I won’t ask questions first.”
They don’t answer. Just disappear around the corner, boots hitting the concrete a little faster than when they came.
I wait until I can’t hear them anymore, then duck back inside.
Kelsea’s standing by the window, blade back in her hand.
“They show it?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
She exhales through her nose. “And?”
“They won’t be back.”
I watch her grip the hilt tighter. She nods once. Then she walks past me to the rig.
Not running.
Not hiding.
We both know the game’s changed.
And neither of us is playing defense anymore.
That realization settles in my chest like a slow burn. Not a spark—no. This is something heavier. A shift in gravity. We’ve stopped reacting. Now we move. We set the pace. Our enemies don’t get to pick the terms anymore.
The silence between us isn’t dead space—it’s the weight of intention.
I roll my shoulders, loosen the claws, crack the tension from my spine like I’m shedding old skin. She stands by the rig, watching the static hum across its screen, but her mind’s already further out. Planning. Calculating. Ready.
I start the clean-up in silence.
Not because I’m trying to be stoic. Not for any poetic reason. It’s just... what you do. What I do. When the end of something’s this close, you don’t dress it up. You wipe it down. Strip it back. Burn it clean.
My claws move on instinct—grabbing, flipping, folding, discarding. The stale air in the room smells like copper and carbon, old food, broken sleep, and her shampoo. It’s all baked into the walls now, like we lived here longer than we did.
Kelsea doesn't talk. She's across the room, sitting on the edge of the cot, back straight, hands moving in a slow rhythm as she packs her things. Not rushed. Not detached. Focused. I think she knows this part matters to me, even if I won’t say it.
I move to the sink, pop the false bottom.
My claws slip into the groove by memory, and the last data chip slides into my palm—tiny, almost weightless.
But this little bastard’s got everything.
Burners. Codes. Emergency clearance pings.
Bits of Ceera’s original voiceprint, too.
Things we were never supposed to keep. Things we sure as hell can’t take with us.
I squat down beside the burner rig, thumb the heat coil alive. It glows soft orange, like an eye blinking open.
“Final one,” I mutter.
Kelsea doesn’t answer, but I catch the faint shift of her gaze—she’s watching. Not interfering. Just seeing me. There’s a difference.
The chip shrivels on contact with the coil. I watch it blister, melt, the circuits crumbling in on themselves like ash in wind. The smell curls up thick—metallic, bitter, sharp enough to sting the nose. It smells like loss. Like a door closing.
I hold my breath till the last of it curls into nothing.
Then I stay kneeling. Just for a second.
I let my eyes sweep the room.
The console’s cracked, cables fraying like nerve endings.
The cot’s legs are uneven—one had to be propped up with a tin ration box.
The wall by the window still has that smear of soot from the first night we fired back.
Our blood’s here. Our sweat. Our stupid, whispered laughs in the dark when we were too tired to be afraid.
I didn’t mean for this place to mean anything.
But it does.
I feel it in the way my chest tightens when I stand up too fast. I feel it in how hard it is to look away from the cot.
“Kelsea,” I say, voice low and clear, “pack light.”
No hesitation. She moves like a switch flipped.
Bag’s already halfway full by the time I grab my own gear.
Not because she’s scared. But because she knows.
Knows how fast this turns, how small the cracks get when you wait too long.
She folds her clothes like she’s packing pieces of herself away—tight, precise, efficient. Nothing sentimental. Nothing slow.
Kelsea’s voice breaks through, quiet.
“You sure it’s all gone?”
“Everything,” I say, and my voice is rougher than I expect.
She zips her pack. Doesn’t press. But she steps in a little closer, and I feel her watching me, really watching me now. Not just scanning for weakness. Just… seeing.
“This place,” she says, glancing around. “It mattered.”
I shrug, trying to sound casual. “Won’t miss the leaks. Or the cold.”
“But you’ll miss it,” she says, and this time her voice is softer. “Because it was the first place you let someone in.”
I don’t respond right away. My fingers are twitching.
I clench them into fists. Then I crouch again and run my claws along the notch under the floorboard—muscle memory.
It’s still there. The little scar where I hid my blade.
My old self. The backup plan I didn’t need because she showed up and everything started shifting.
“I didn’t plan for any of this,” I say, still looking down.
“Neither did I.”
When I rise, she’s closer. Within arm’s reach.
And she places her hand—just barely—on my forearm.
“You don’t have to say it,” she says. “I know.”
That breaks something loose in my throat. Not pain. Not relief. Just weight. Being seen without the armor. She never asked for it. She never forced it. But she’s the only one who’s ever had it.
“There’s a fallback,” I tell her, crouched by the cot to retrieve the blade I stashed in the crossbeam.
The metal’s cold in my hand, familiar. “Outside the district. Old freight hub past the edge of Sector Nine. Surveillance grid burned out years ago. No drones. No power. Just dead space and shadows.”
She nods without looking up. “How far?”
“Seven klicks. Four if we cut through the lower rails. It’s buried enough we’ll go in clean.”
“Safe?”
“Safe enough to buy time.”
Her fingers pause over a worn set of gloves, hesitating for the first time. “Time’s a luxury.”
“Time’s what I’m buying us.”
I move to the rig and power it down. No breadcrumbs. No signals. Everything we touch from now on has to vanish the moment we leave it. I strip the drive, smash the tracker, scatter the parts down the disposal grate behind the sink. Every motion calculated. Efficient. No noise.
She pulls the strap tight across her shoulder, eyes flicking to the window as another drone sweeps low and slow down the avenue. The lights pulse faint blue through the cracked glass. We freeze. Wait. Count the seconds.
Gone.
“We’ve got six minutes before the next pass,” I say, watching the shadows on the wall.
“I’m ready.”
I believe her.
The city outside’s different now. Something’s shifted. I can feel it in the air, in the way the walls vibrate underfoot. Like the grid’s out of rhythm—like something’s coming unhinged just below the surface.
I’ve already mapped every route in my head. Three tight alleys, two submerged tunnels, one bridge long since declared unstable. Fastest one takes nine minutes at full push. Easiest to cover tracks takes eleven. I settle on the middle path—eight and a half with room to bleed if needed.
I sling my satchel over one shoulder—lighter than it should be, but heavier in consequence. Ration tabs, sensor scramblers, half a charge of thermo paste, and two blades with edge treatments no Coalition scanner can read. I don’t carry trophies. Just tools.
Kelsea checks her sidearm—not much more than a pulse pistol, but clean and unmarked. She looks at me, waiting for the signal.
“You good?” I ask.
She nods once. “You?”
I flash a rare grin. “Always.”