Chapter 45
The main hall is a pressure vessel packed with bodies, noise, and light.
Even before we’re fully through the threshold, my ears are ringing.
Lanterns hang from the ceiling like spores, bleeding orange and blue over the crowd.
The air is sour with sweat, alcohol, and the charcoal tang of something roasting over an open flame.
A hundred conversations overlap at once: laughter, arguments, the jangle of scavenged cutlery and the slap of hands on backs.
It’s the kind of sensory overload that makes my skin crawl and my vision narrow to a point.
Kang and I make it two steps before the volume triples.
The shift is physical; the bass of so many voices pushes against my ribs.
I clench my hands at my sides, try to keep the panic caged.
Training said to scan a crowd for anomalies—loose clusters, unshared glances, sudden silences.
In the Sanctuary, every anomaly is the baseline.
People yell across tables, trade insults, dance with hands full of bread or bottled beer.
I spot Maven near the head of a table, one foot on the bench, hair backlit by a string of LEDs.
They hold court with a cluster of techs, gesturing wildly with a metal cup.
Kang’s hand is at my lower back, steadying, but not possessive.
“Easy,” he murmurs, his breath a damp patch behind my ear.
“You’re safe here.” The words rattle around in my skull, fighting the surge of memory— Authority canteen, same density of bodies, different kind of hunger.
I nod, but my jaw is too tight to speak.
A runner, maybe ten years old, weaves through the crowd and snags Maven’s sleeve. Maven twists, scans the hall, and spots us. They break from their pack and make a beeline, carrying two cups sloshing with foamy, yellow fluid. They reach us and thrust a cup into each of our hands.
“Diana! Kang!” Maven booms, all teeth and red cheeks. “You look like a pair of spies who wandered into a wedding.” They lean in, close enough that their breath tickles my nose, and add, “Relax. If anyone here was going to knife you, they’d wait until you finished your drink.”
I eye the cup: stamped aluminum, stained with old oxidization. The beer inside is almost luminous, the bubbles rising thick as blood. I take a sip, and it’s like swallowing battery acid mixed with mildew. The bitterness climbs the back of my throat, and I have to force it down.
Kang takes his in one motion, barely a wince.
Maven hoots, delighted. “Told you she’d hate it,” they say to Kang, then wink at me. “You never could handle the good stuff, doc.”
I cough, wipe my mouth on my wrist. “You call this good?”
“It’s pre-war,” Maven says, proud. “We found the stash in a warehouse— Authority thought it was floor wax.” They slap me on the shoulder, right next to the fresh bandage, and I grunt at the shock of pain.
Kang tenses, but I shoot him a look: Don’t. He lets it slide, though his jaw works, silent.
Maven raises their cup, gesturing to the room at large. “To making it another month,” they declare. “To the dead who still owe us money.” A few in the crowd overhear, and raise their own cups in reply, voices swelling in chorus.
“To the fucking future!” Maven crows, and drains the beer.
I clink my cup to Kang’s, the sound tinny and hollow, then take another swallow. This time the burn is almost pleasant.
Maven leans in, their voice pitched low. “You’ll want to find seats before the music starts. Rosie and her crew have been practicing— it’s going to get loud.”
Kang nods, scanning the hall. His posture is more relaxed now, but I can tell he’s counting heads, noting exits, clocking every potential threat. I find it reassuring, in a sick way. If I’m going to lose control, I’d rather have someone nearby who knows how to fake it.
We move along the perimeter, Kang’s hand never leaving my back. The crowd ebbs and flows, parting sometimes for no reason, then closing behind us like water. A couple of faces turn to watch us pass, but there’s no hostility in it—just curiosity, maybe even hope. I let myself believe it, for now.
At the far wall, we find a pair of crates set as a makeshift table. Kang drops into a crouch, his knees popping loud enough to hear over the din. I perch on the edge, back to the concrete, scanning the scene through the haze of sweat and beer.
For a second, I let myself watch. People laugh, shout, slap each other’s shoulders. Someone at a side table juggles three oranges, to the raucous delight of the children who were climbing Kang earlier. Another pair dances with reckless abandon, spinning so hard they nearly wipe out the snack bar.
It’s almost… normal.
I look at Kang. The light makes his eyes shine green and glassy. He’s still, always still, but there’s a softness at the corners of his mouth that I’ve never seen before.
“You okay?” he asks, voice so low it vibrates through my ribs instead of my ears.
“Yeah,” I lie. “It’s just… a lot.”
He nods. “You get used to it.”
I snort, nearly choke on the beer. “Doubtful.”
He doesn’t smile, but the tension in his shoulders drops by a millimeter.
Maven reappears, somehow already refilling their cup, and plants themself next to Kang. “You’re missing the best part,” Maven says, nodding at the stage where Rosie and two others are untangling microphone cables. “First song’s always for the newcomers. You two are the headliners.”
“Do we have to sing?” I ask, horror blooming.
Maven grins. “No, but you’ll want to listen.”
The crowd hushes as Rosie grabs the mic, taps it twice, and waits for the room to catch up.
“Alright, shut up, you animals,” she shouts.
“We’re live.” Laughter ripples through the hall, and then the band launches into a cover of something old and punky, the lyrics rewritten to lampoon the Authority’s most recent failure.
I let myself relax into the sound, the chaos of it. Next to me, Kang’s fingers tap the rhythm on his thigh, perfectly in time.
Maven raises their cup for another toast, voice ringing over the music: “To the freaks who survived, and the bastards who couldn’t kill us.”
I clink my cup to theirs. This time, I mean it.
The song ends, the crowd erupts, and for the first time in forever, I’m not thinking about the next move. I’m here, in this place, surrounded by people who might hate me tomorrow but don’t right now.
It feels like a victory.
Kang catches my eye, leans close, and says, “You did good, Dee.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
So I just raise my cup, and let the night begin.
Rosie’s band finishes its opening set, the last chord echoing off the concrete. People bang their cups and stomp their feet until Maven, who’s already perched on the nearest crate, silences the room with a single raised hand.
The crowd reacts in ripples, bodies turning, eyes tracking. Maven rides the moment, one arm slung around the shoulders of a wiry man who looks equal parts tech and street preacher. When the noise dips below a dull roar, Maven stands, wobbles for show, and swings their cup in a sweeping arc.
“Listen up, you beautiful degenerates,” Maven bellows. “We’ve made it through another rotation. That’s worth three toasts and a riot.”
A rumble of laughter. A smattering of applause.
Maven paces the length of the makeshift stage, letting the anticipation build. “I see new faces tonight—faces I know, faces I want to know, faces that look like they’d rather be anywhere but here.” Maven’s gaze lands on me and Kang, and for a second the weight of the room pins me in place.
“But you’re here,” Maven says, softer, the tone turning conspiratorial. “You made it through the walls, the checkpoints, the Authority’s best efforts to wipe us out or bleed us dry. You’re here because you chose something better. Something true.”
The room goes tight, the air humming.
“You know what I love about this place?” Maven asks.
“Nobody here got a second chance by accident. Every person in this room fought to exist. You think Authority likes that? You think the system wants us to remember who we are?” Maven slams their cup down, the metal ringing against the crate.
“They want us to forget! They want us docile, empty, scared.”
A shiver runs through the crowd. Heads nod, jaws clench.
“But we’re not scared, are we?” Maven grins, eyes flickering to Kang. “No. We’re not scared. We’re fucking furious. And that—” Maven raises their cup, “—that’s why we’ll win.”
A cheer goes up. People pound the tables, voices rising in uneven, joyous noise. Maven waits, soaking it in, then cuts the volume with a slice of their hand.
“Tonight, we honor the lost. We celebrate the found. And we remember every bastard who thought we’d give up.
” Maven’s voice crescendos, every word bouncing off the stone and burrowing into my skull.
“We are the memory they can’t erase. We are the mutation they can’t kill.
We are the future they’re too scared to imagine! ”
The crowd is electric now, raw and alive. Cups clatter, fists pump. Maven raises their own drink and yells, “Fuck the system!”
“FUCK THE SYSTEM!” the crowd roars back, in perfect, ragged unison.
Even I can’t help it. The words crawl up my throat and burst out, less a shout than a snarl. Next to me, Kang raises his cup and adds his voice, a single syllable but full of teeth.
Maven beams, soaking in the noise like it’s sunlight. “Drink up!” they command. “Tomorrow, the work begins again. But tonight, we live.”
The music surges, faster this time, a cover of a song I half-remember from the before times.
The dance floor—really just the clear space near the ovens—fills with bodies, spinning and stomping in wild abandon.
Couples pair off, groups form and dissolve.
Even the solemn techs at the corner table clap in time.