Dust clung to your tongue, sharp with ash and cordite. It filled the cracks in your throat, ground itself beneath your nails, settled heavy in your chest like sediment that would never wash out.

And beneath it all: her name.

Jinx.

It struck like a ricochet inside your skull. Too loud, too sharp, splitting open the scar that would not close. You saw it again, the moment replaying without mercy—the girl’s frantic hand latching onto her sleeve, the white-hot flare of the blast tearing the air apart. The single shot that could have ended it, torn from you in a blaze of fire and ruin.

And now, down here. Following her into the underbelly of the city. Not a soldier. Not an enforcer. Nothing so clean. Something far uglier, rawer.

Revenge? Closure? You didn’t know. Maybe it wasn’t either. Maybe it was just the hollow need to feel something—anything—that wasn’t this endless gnawing ache. Each step into the dripping dark scraped away the surface of who you thought you were, until what was left felt feral, half-formed. The kind of thing Vi might reach for and not recognize at all.

Then her voice.

“Hey.”

Low. Frayed at the edges. That impossible blend of gravel and gentleness that only she could manage.

The narrow beam of her flashlight cut across your face before sliding away. Then her hand brushed yours, hesitant, then closed—warm, firm, anchoring. Her grip wrapped around your wrist like a lifeline, but all it felt like was restraint.

“What’s wrong with you?”

It wasn’t sharp. Wasn’t an accusation. Just concern—bare, unguarded. And that was worse. That was so much worse. Her eyes, clear and blue even in this sewer-stinking dark, pinned you in place, searching for the crack you were trying to seal shut.

You hated her for it.