She turns and moves down the line, her posture snapping back into that same controlled precision.
I watch her go, the weight of everything settling into place.
This isn’t just about Tury anymore.
And neither of us is walking away from it.
CHAPTER 9
JOLIE
Shift changes along the border never feel calm, no matter how routine they’re supposed to be. The movement alone creates friction—boots grinding against packed grit, overlapping voices trading clipped updates, the low buzzing of the fence threading through it all like something alive beneath the noise. The air hangs dry and metallic, thick with the residue of heat and old plasma discharge, and every breath drags that taste across the back of my tongue.
I’m already watching the transition when something breaks the pattern.
It doesn’t register all at once. At first, it’s just a distortion in the flow, a hitch in the movement that doesn’t match the rhythm I’ve spent weeks memorizing. My eyes track it instinctively, locking onto the disruption before my mind fully catches up.
A figure near the fence.
No—somethingonthe fence.
My steps slow without me meaning them to, my focus narrowing until everything else falls away.
“What the hell—” someone starts nearby, their voice cutting off as recognition hits.
I don’t hear the rest.
I’m already moving.
The closer I get, the more the shape resolves into something my brain doesn’t want to accept. The sound of the fence grows louder with each step, the vibration pressing against my skin, and then the smell hits me—burned flesh, sharp and metallic, layered over the dry, dust-choked air in a way that makes my stomach tighten.
“Tury,” I say, but the name feels wrong in my mouth, like it doesn’t belong to what I’m looking at.
He’s been driven through the fence.
Not tangled.
Not thrown.
Impaled.
The rods have punched clean through his torso, the current still arcing faintly where metal meets flesh, scorching the edges of the wounds into something dark and brittle. His body hangs forward, weight dragged down by gravity, head angled at a tilt that doesn’t follow any natural line of movement.
Someone behind me swears under their breath.
“Don’t touch him,” another voice snaps, sharper, closer.
I don’t reach for him.
But I step closer.
Close enough to see the details that matter.
“This wasn’t a fall,” I say, my voice steady in a way that surprises me, even as something cold settles into my chest.
“Lieutenant, step back,” one of the guards says, moving up beside me, his presence tense.
I don’t look at him.
