4. Grath
GRATH
The air in the café feels thick. Wrong.
Nora's staring. Maris won't look at me. The kitten stretches on the windowsill, oblivious.
"I'll go," I say.
Maris's head snaps up. "What? No, I—"
"You have friend business." I gesture vaguely at Nora. At the takeout bag. At the space I'm suddenly too big to fit inside without making everything complicated.
I head for the back door before either of them can argue.
Outside, the alley smells like garbage and salt water. Better. Cleaner somehow than the tangle inside my chest.
Almost kissed her.
Stupid. Reckless. She cried and I touched her face like I had that right, like putting my hands on her wouldn't mark her as mine to everyone watching.
And someone's always watching.
I walk. Don't know where. Just need to move, burn off whatever this feeling is that's crawling under my skin.
End up at my apartment. The rowhouse. Still calling it that in my head even though the deed has my name on it now. Ownership's a strange thing. Heavy. Like chains except nobody's holding the other end.
Inside, the place is too quiet. I put the cigar tin on the counter. Haven't looked at it in days.
I lift the lid. Let it fall open slow.
The smell crawls out first, coiling around me like something alive. Metal gone dull with age. Old sweat ground into fabric that's never coming clean. The particular stink of memory, sharp and sour, the kind that lives in your throat before it settles anywhere else.
My chest tightens. I know what's inside, have known since I put the tin down, but looking is different. Looking makes it real all over again.
Tokens. Scraps. Bits of nothing most people would sweep into the trash without a second thought.
To me, they're everything. The only proof I have that any of it happened. That I survived it.
I stare down at the collection. My hands rest on either side of the tin, knuckles white against the counter's edge. The weight in my gut settles lower, colder, familiar as an old wound in winter.
This is what's left when you claw your way out of hell. Not triumph. Not glory.
Just a handful of broken things you can't throw away.
A button. Brass. Torn from Korvak's shirt the night we planned the escape. He's dead now. Caught three days after we ran. Made an example of.
Smooth river stone. Gray with a white stripe. Lira gave it to me. Said it was for luck. She didn't make it past the first winter outside. Froze to death in an alley two cities over.
Strip of red fabric. From the flag they flew when someone died here. Collected one every time. Forty-three total before I stopped counting.
I trace each piece. Run my thumb over edges and surfaces. Remember.
Crowds screaming for violence, for spectacle. They bet on us. Traded us. Owned us.
We weren't people. We were property that bled.
Korvak used to say we were already dead. That free men died the day they were sold, and what fought there was just meat learning to move. But at night, locked in the holding cells, he'd talk about a coast he remembered. Fishing boats. His daughter's laugh.
Dead men don't remember daughters.
We planned for months. Lira stole keys. Korvak mapped guard rotations. I broke the lock on the night of the winter festival when half the guards were drunk.
Eleven of us ran that night.
Only three made it past the city walls before the hunters caught our scent.
Now I stand here alone. The last one breathing. The last one left to carry all their names like stones in my pockets, dragging me down with every step I take toward something that feels almost like freedom but tastes like survivor's guilt.
The guilt sits different now than it used to. Less sharp. More like weight I've learned to carry. But it's always there, whispering that good things get taken away. That safety's temporary. That the second you let yourself want something, someone notices and uses it against you.
Maris. She's a good thing, and that makes her a target. The knowledge sits cold in my torso, heavy as iron.
The kitten in my hands is another good thing. Small. Fragile. Warm as a prayer. Its purr vibrates against my palms, trusting in a way I don't deserve.
This apartment with its creaking floors. This town where the bakery owner remembers my order now, where café customers nod instead of flinching when I walk past. All of it, every single scrap of normal I've clawed together, all good things.
Which means they're all weapons waiting to be used. Soft targets. Leverage.
I close the tin with its handful of coins and medals that don't belong to me. The metal edge bites into my thumb. I shove the whole thing back into the drawer, deeper this time, like burying evidence. Like that'll make it safer.
My phone buzzes against the counter. The vibration sounds too loud in the quiet apartment, rattling my nerves. I don't recognize the number on the screen.
Check the town forum.
That's all it says. No signature. No context. Nothing that tells me who sent it or what I'm supposed to find there. Just those three words, stark and waiting.
My stomach tightens. Nothing good ever comes from anonymous warnings.
I pull up the website on my phone. My fingers feel too big for the screen, clumsy and slow, tusks casting shadows across the glass as I fumble with the browser. The page loads with agonizing slowness, each second stretching thin.
The latest post sits pinned at the very top of the forum.
My chest goes cold.
ILLEGAL SQUATTER EXPOSED: "Hero" Orc Has No Right to Property
My stomach drops.
The post's long. Detailed. Claims I forged residency documents. That the deed transfer was fraudulent. That I've been unlawfully occupying the property and the rightful owner, Vance Development, is pursuing legal action.
There are screenshots. Official-looking documents with seals and signatures. A photo of me outside the rowhouse, date-stamped three weeks ago with "ILLEGAL OCCUPANT" stamped across it in red.
Every word is fabricated. Every line, every seal, every signature. But the lie wears truth like a tailored suit, and from where the forum sits, it looks immaculate. Unassailable. Real enough to ruin me.
The comment section bleeds open beneath the post.
Knew something was off about that one.
Can't trust these arena types. Once a fighter, always a criminal.
Feel bad for Maris. Poor girl got played hard.
Bet that viral video was staged from the start. Whole thing's probably a scam.
The words multiply, spreading like rot through fresh wood.
I watch the goodwill from yesterday's kitten video curdle in real time, all that warmth and hope souring into suspicion.
Into bile. The poison spreads fast, and Maris's name appears again and again, dragged through the same filth they're using to bury me.
My chest feels tight. Wrong. Like someone's wrapped chains around my ribs and started pulling.
The phone rings. Same unknown number glowing on the screen.
I swipe to answer. Press the cold glass to my ear.
"Mr. Olden." The voice slides through the line like oil over water. Smooth. Male. Familiar in a way that makes my jaw clench. "This is Marcus Vance. I believe it's time we had a conversation."
The name snaps into place. The developer. The man who sent those goons to my door, who thought muscle and threats would be enough to move me.
"Got nothing to say to you," I growl. My voice comes out rougher, tusks pressing hard against my lower lip.
"I disagree. See, there's been a misunderstanding. A clerical error with your property deed. Easily corrected, but it requires your cooperation. Meet with me. Tomorrow. We'll sort this out quietly, no need for further unpleasantness."
"No."
"Mr. Olden, be reasonable. This situation affects more than just you.
The Saltwater Cat Café, for instance. Lovely establishment.
Be a shame if health inspectors found violations.
Or if that viral fame turned into viral infamy.
Fraud allegations. Conspiracy. The internet's fickle, you know. Turns on people fast."
Threat's clear. Crystal.
Maris gets hurt if I don't comply.
"What do you want?" I ask.
"A conversation. Tomorrow. Ten a.m. My office. Come alone, come ready to negotiate, and perhaps we can make this whole mess disappear."
He hangs up before I can respond.
I peer at the phone. At the forum post. At the comments piling up.
Should tell Maris. Should warn her.
But the comments are already about her. Already calling her gullible, calling the café a front, dragging her name through the same mud they're slinging at me.
If I stay, it gets worse.
If I fight, she gets caught in the crossfire.
The old instinct kicks in. The one that kept me alive in the place, kept me moving after Korvak and Lira died.
Run. Disappear. Protect the good things by getting far away from them.
I grab my jacket. The cigar tin. Leave everything else.
Make it halfway down the stairs before I stop.
The kitten.
Pebble's still at the café. Still small and trusting and purring against Maris's apron.
Can't leave without saying goodbye. Can't vanish like I'm ashamed, like they were right about me all along.
But I can't stay either.
The walk back to the café feels longer than it should. Every person I pass seems to stare. Seems to know.
Inside, Nora's gone. Maris is alone, scrubbing the espresso machine with vicious focus.
She looks up. Sees my face.
"What happened?"
I hand her my phone. Watch her scroll through the forum post. Watch her expression shift from confusion to anger to something worse. Fear.
"This is fake," she says. Firm. Certain. "It's obviously fake."
"Doesn't matter."
"Of course it matters! Grath, this is slander. We can fight this. Get a lawyer. Prove—"
"They'll come after you next."
That stops her. Phone still in her hand. Eyes wide.
"Vance called me. Threatened the café. Said he'd make it all go away if I cooperate."
"Cooperate how?"
"Doesn't matter. I'm not doing it."