“Move,” I say.
They move.
Inside, the depot smells of wet cardboard, oil, stimulant smoke, cheap gunmetal, and adrenaline. A dozen Poison Memories occupy the loading floor among stolen courier skiffs, crates of ammunition, and stacks of compads stripped for resale. One turns as the side door opens.
He sees me.
The entire room changes.
“Dragon!” he shouts.
Then the violence starts.
A slugthrower fires from behind a crate, the round striking my shoulder and flattening with bruising force against scale. I cross the floor before he can fire again, seize the weapon, and fold the barrel inward. He stares at the ruined gun like logic has betrayed him.
I hit him in the chest with an open palm.
He flies backward into two others.
Arturo’s men move with frightening efficiency after that, not street brawlers, not gang actors, but trained professionals with quiet hands and colder eyes. They disarm, restrain, disable. Cleo’s people sweep the office level, pulling data modules from the comm grid. I keep to the center because that is where the fear goes.
A Poison Memories lieutenant with blue hair lunges at me with a plasma cutter.
The same one from Evie’s bakery, perhaps. Or another. They blur now into purple jackets and bad choices.
I catch his arm before the cutter reaches my ribs and pin him against the hood of a courier skiff. “Who opened the floodgate?”
He spits at me.
I break his wrist.
He screams.
“Who opened the floodgate?”
“Go to hell!”
I dislocate his shoulder.
His scream becomes higher.
Arturo appears beside me. “Kauss.”
I do not look at him. “Who opened it?”
“Ron!” the boy sobs. “Ron ordered it! Said the drain rats were your army. Said we drown them, we drown your crown before you wear it.”
My crown.
The absurdity should mean nothing.
Instead, I see Al underwater.
I see Evie’s empty hook.
I see Ron smiling as he looks at her.
The old soldier inside me asks for permission to end everything in reach.
