HRASK
Iknow she’s going to push it again before she actually does.
It shows up in the way she moves along the line, not in anything obvious enough to flag in a report, but in the subtle tightening of her posture and the way her patrol route drifts just a fraction closer to the edge of where it’s supposed to be. Jolie doesn’t rush into things blindly, and she doesn’t make mistakes that come from panic or lack of control. What she does instead is far more dangerous, because she calculates exactly how far she can go before it becomes a problem and then decides that limit is negotiable.
That kind of thinking doesn’t get you reprimanded.
It gets you disappeared.
The heat presses down hard on the border, thick and relentless, turning the air into something that feels almost solid when I breathe it in. Dust drags along the ground in uneven sheets, catching against my boots before slipping past again, and the fence hums steadily between us, the low vibration threading through everything like a warning that nobody listens to anymore.
I track her without looking like I’m tracking her, letting my posture stay loose, my weight shifting lazily from one foot tothe other as if I’ve got nothing better to do than stand here and exist. Across from me, she moves with her familar precision, but there’s an edge to it now that wasn’t there before, something sharper under the surface that tells me her attention isn’t fully on the patrol anymore.
“Careful,” I call out, pitching my voice just loud enough to carry without drawing too much attention. I tilt my head slightly, watching her adjust without making it obvious. “You’re starting to look predictable.”
She doesn’t turn immediately, but I see the reaction anyway, the way her shoulders shift and her path corrects just enough to keep it from being obvious.
“Maybe you’re just paying too much attention,” she replies, her tone flat but edged.
“That’s kind of my job,” I say, letting a faint smirk pull at my mouth.
“Then do it on your side of the fence.”
“Hard to,” I reply, glancing past her like I’m checking something further down the line. “Yours keeps bleeding into mine.”
That gets her attention.
Her gaze snaps toward me, sharp and assessing, and for a moment the rest of the line fades out of focus as she locks onto me like I’m the only thing that matters.
“I’ve got it handled,” she says.
“That’s what I’m worried about,” I answer, letting just enough weight settle into the words to make them land.
She doesn’t respond to that, but she doesn’t move any closer to the blind zone either, which tells me she heard what I meant whether she wants to admit it or not.
Good.
Because what I found doesn’t leave room for mistakes.
I break from the fence after the next patrol shift cycles through, letting my movement blend into the rotation like I’m following standard procedure instead of stepping off it. The deeper I move into Coalition territory, the more the air changes, losing the dry bite of the surface and taking on that familiar weight of machinery and enclosed space. The scent of oil clings to everything, layered with the faint metallic tang of overheated systems, and the throb of power running through the walls settles into a low, constant pressure against my ears.
I follow the route I marked earlier, my pace steady, my attention split between where I’m going and everything around me. The corridors here don’t see much traffic, and what little there is moves through quickly, heads down, conversations kept low.
The unit I’m tracking rotated out of Tury’s sector without a clean trail.
That’s what the logs say.
The floor says something else.
I slow as I reach the junction where their path shifted, letting my gaze drift downward like I’m checking footing instead of scanning for inconsistencies. The scuff marks are still there, faint but fresh enough to catch the light differently than the surrounding metal. Something scraped across the surface here, not heavy enough to leave deep gouges, but not controlled either.
I crouch slightly, dragging my fingers along the edge of one of the marks. The texture is rough where it shouldn’t be, the surface disrupted just enough to confirm it wasn’t normal traffic.
Someone struggled.
“Looking for something?”
The voice comes from behind me, and I straighten slowly, turning just enough to bring the speaker into view without reacting like I’ve been caught.
