It’s at the bottom, folded, where I left it. I work my hand down the side, past the jeans, and my fingers hit something hard and flat that has no business being there.
I go still, arm deep in the bag.
I know the shape. My fingers know it before my head does, because I carried one exactly like it for months. I close my hand around it and draw it out, and I’m holding a phone. A cheap black burner, the kind you buy with cash. The kind that lived under my mattress once and sent me to the drops.
I don’t move for a long time. The room is exactly as it was. The door is locked—I locked it; I lock it every night. Decker made me promise. Marek is in the corridor—him or another guard, every hour of every day. And someone walked past all of that, opened my bag, slid this under my folded clothes, and walked out again.
I press the power button. Not knowing is worse.
The screen lights. Charged. Waiting. One message thread, no name, no number I know.
The first message has no greeting. It starts in the middle, the way she always started.
Did you think we couldn’t reach you in there?
My stomach drops. There’s no sound; it’s black letters on a gray screen, and I still hear her saying it—level, no hurry.
You’ve been busy. Sitting in rooms. Answering questions. That was unwise.
Don’t tell yourself the bear will keep you safe. He might not be on your side.
I breathe out at that one. Almost a laugh, ugly and short.
That’s the game—of course that’s the game. It’s what I’d do. Poison the one person I trust, get me alone, make me easier to move. She spent months teaching me how she works, and this is how she works.
“Fuck you,” I whisper. “I’m not falling for that.”
I’m already reaching to power it off when the next line stops my thumb.
Ask him why we never killed you.
The gold light is still coming through the window. The heater ticks. And I’m back in the briefing room, watching Nadia look up from her laptop, saying,“Why did they want her back that badly?”And Viktor saying,“Park it,”too fast. And Decker against the wall, not moving. Not asking. Not surprised.
You’re worth what your sister’s worth now. Same blood. Same price. He knows exactly what that means. Ask him why he never told you.
I glance at the door, then back at the phone.
You want to know what’s happening to Serenity?
My thumb hovers over the keypad. If I respond, I’m back in their game. I’m not playing it. I need to get this phone to Viktor. Right now.
But I can’t stop myself scrolling.
Her blood is being sold. Drop by drop, to whoever pays. She is running out. That is what waiting costs her.
That’s all. That’s the end of the thread.
I read it again from the top. Then again. The plastic goes slick under my fingers. I keep waiting for the dismissal to come: enemy poison, they’re liars, they threatened Serenity for months and never told me a true thing they didn’t have to.
But the dismissal won’t come, because too much of what I've already seen agrees with her.
Vanya asked me—Same mother? Full sister?—and when I answered, she wrote nothing down. She asked if the handler ever wanted to know about my family, my line. My bloodline.
Blood.
The Syndicate tried to take me on that road. I thought it was to kill me. The same when that dragon came. They weren’t trying to kill me; they were trying to take me back.
Something changed what I was worth, and everyone in that briefing room said nothing. And the man who had his hands on every part of me last night stood against that wall and kept his mouth shut too.
