Chapter 35 Kimberly
KIMBERLY
The scent of charred wood still clings to the rafters no matter how many times we scrub them.
Paint doesn’t cover trauma. You can patch a hole in a wall, sand it smooth, but the structure remembers.
This building—what’s left of it—remembers fire, remembers blood, remembers what it was asked to hold.
And now, we ask it to do something stranger: hold peace.
I walk the perimeter of the Fierson Grill for the tenth time this morning, hand trailing the smooth curve of the newly installed banister, head tilted as I listen to the pipes murmur. Tur’s voice buzzes in my earpiece. “Booth seven’s loose again. Wobbles like a drunk on grav-sick leave.”
“I’ll wedge it,” I mutter, squatting to check the bolts. “We’ve had worse.”
“We’ve been worse.”
That makes me smile, which I hate a little. “Don’t get sentimental on me, soldier.”
“Never.”
But his tone’s softer than usual. And I know what he’s really saying: this quiet feels borrowed. Fragile. And we’re both waiting for the bill to come due.
We reopen with no fanfare. No headlines. No dignitaries or commemorations. Just Mara standing outside at six in the morning with a broom and a speaker, blasting a Novarian blues mix while she sweeps up broken glass from the last windstorm. The sign out front glows dim and stubborn: OPEN.
Inside, the tables are a patchwork of salvaged furniture and donated memories. One has scorch marks that won’t come out. Another’s surface is etched with initials no one dares claim. The bar top gleams like a secret. We repurposed marble from the courthouse—our little act of poetic theft.
By noon, they start trickling in. Syndicate bruisers with still-healing burns. Peacekeepers in gray armor with their helmets clipped to their belts like promises they won’t keep. Survivors. Wanderers. The tired and the angry and the ones who just want a cup of something hot and forgettable.
“Place smells better than I expected,” one says to another, voice low.
“Smells like truce,” his friend replies.
They sit two seats apart and pretend not to watch each other.
Mara drops a drink in front of a woman with a jagged scar across her scalp. “That one’s on the house. You don’t start any shit, your next one is, too.”
The woman raises a brow. “What if someone else starts it?”
“Then I start it worse.”
Laughter. Tense. But real.
Tur moves like a ghost in the corner. He’s not trying to intimidate—he doesn’t have to.
His presence is gravity. His bone spurs are out, gleaming faintly under his shirt.
Not sharpened. Not concealed. Just there.
He’s proof that the worst of us can survive, and that’s enough to keep half the room on their best behavior.
I take a shift behind the bar. There’s something oddly grounding about polishing glasses while pretending I’m not the person people whisper about in the news. One of the mediators approaches. Female, middle-aged, clipboard in one hand, datafeed flashing from her ocular.
“I’d like to speak with the owner.”
“You are.”
“Oh.” Her tone falters. “Ms. Fierson. Of course. I didn’t expect—”
“To be pouring drinks? Welcome to Novaria.”
She hesitates. “I think what you’re doing here is… brave.”
“No,” I say. “It’s necessary. Brave would be not needing this place at all.”
Later that night, I find Tur upstairs. He’s perched on the balcony overlooking the dining floor, eyes flicking like radar across every face, every twitch.
“You look like shit,” I say gently.
“Been a long week.”
“It’s Tuesday.”
He huffs a laugh, dry and low. “Point stands.”
I sit beside him, the wooden floor creaking softly beneath us. We don’t speak for a while. Just listen—to the clink of plates, the hum of a hundred quiet tensions being held just barely in check.
“Do you think it’s working?” I ask eventually.
Tur doesn’t answer right away. “I think it’s holding.”
“Same thing?”
“Not even close.”
Later, I sleep with a shockblade under my pillow. Tur doesn’t flinch when I reach for it in the dark after a noise. Doesn’t reach for his own. Just watches me settle and then pulls me close.
Our emergency bags are packed. Escape routes memorized. Dead-drop credits and identities scrubbed clean, ready to deploy. Contingency on top of contingency.
And yet…
There’s music in the kitchen again. Laughter at the bar. Somebody brought a dog in once and no one complained.
I hear a child giggle, and it cracks something in my chest I didn’t know was still closed.
This peace might not last.
But godsdamn it, I’ll fight to keep it.