The warehouse air pressed down like a storm cloud—metallic, damp, alive with shimmer’s sickly glow.

Silco stood on the mezzanine, one hand behind his back, cigarette burning slow between his fingers. Below, machines pulsed in steady rhythm. No hesitation. No doubt. Hiss. Flow. Release. Consistent. Predictable. Unlike people.

Footsteps echoed behind him—measured, familiar. He didn’t turn. He already knew who it was. The guest. The variable. Not bound. Not caged. Just… kept.

That had been intentional.

Silco exhaled smoke into the industrial dark, the ember lighting his scarred face in brief, fractured flashes. His deadened eye watched everything without blinking. Including them. They weren’t supposed to matter. Just leverage. A name. A tool.

And yet he found himself circling their absence like a habit forming in real time. Listening when he shouldn’t. Waiting when he didn’t need to.

Jinx noticed. Sevika called it strategy. Silco wasn’t so sure. Interest was harder to control than fear.

He crushed the cigarette under his boot.

“…Strange, isn’t it?” he murmured. “How the enemy always looks different up close.”