There are five of them gathered outside the old transit office, pretending to be casual with the theatrical incompetence of young predators who want witnesses to understand they are dangerous. They wear purple-black markings and cheap arrogance. One has silver piercings up his ear. One has a tattoo crawling along his neck. One keeps touching the grip of a pistolbeneath his jacket because he likes feeling brave and does not yet understand that a weapon in the hand of a fool is mostly a countdown to tragedy.
I should have driven them farther from the bakery last night.
The thought is cold and immediate. I scared them away. I bent their tool. I threatened their hands. I let them run because they were young, stupid, and not yet worth blood. That mercy now sits rotten in my mouth.
Then Evie walks into their view.
My body goes still before my thoughts catch up. She is alone, coming from the direction of Bellweather’s with her sweater pulled close against the mist, her bag strap across her shoulder, her blonde hair damp from the rain. She moves with that stubborn, upright little stride of hers, as if the street should be ashamed of itself for being threatening. She does not look drunk. She does not look careless. She looks like a woman walking home in her own neighborhood, which should not be an act of courage.
The gang notices her.
My claws scrape concrete.
I tell myself to wait. If I drop from the roof too soon, they scatter, and I learn nothing. If I move now, I confirm every frightened whisper about me. If I move now, Evie sees what I am when violence opens the old doors inside me.
Below, one of them calls, “Bakery girl’s out late.”
Her answer carries up through the rain. “Bakery girl has a name, and you haven’t earned it.”
For one absurd instant, pride cuts through my anger. She is frightened. I can hear it in the controlled pitch of her voice and the too-quick rhythm of her breathing. But she does not bend. She does not plead. She bites with words because words are what she has, and she uses them like small knives.
Foolish woman.
Brave woman.
The men spread out.
I rise.
My heartbeat changes. Vakutans have two hearts, and both of mine begin hammering with the familiar brutality of battle-readiness. The street sharpens below me. Distance collapses into angles, weights, routes, threats. Silver Ear is fast but poorly balanced. Neck Tattoo leads because the others watch him before moving. The pistol is under the left side of the broad one’s jacket. The smallest carries a blade in his sleeve. The fifth is trying to circle behind Evie like a coward who has practiced cowardice until it resembles skill.
I draw a breath through all four lungs.
Then Neck Tattoo slaps her.
The sound reaches the roof clean and bright.
Something inside me breaks loose.
I do not remember deciding to jump. One moment I am on the roof, and the next the parapet cracks beneath my boots as I launch across the gap to the lower awning opposite the transit office. Metal screams under my weight. I hit, roll, and drop into the mouth of an alley as Evie sprays one of them and runs. She is fast enough to surprise them. Not fast enough to save herself.
A hand catches her sweater.
She kicks free.
Another body slams into her from the side.
She hits the pavement.
The noise that comes out of me is older than language.
I see Horus IV for one blazing instant. Not the street, not Halo, not rain against brick. I see a service corridor filled with smoke and civilians on their knees while soldiers in the wrong colors laugh. I see a child pulled from my reach by an explosion that turned the world white. I see my squad broken across theplaza where extraction never came. I see all the people I was strong enough to carry but not strong enough to save.
No.
Not this one.
Neck Tattoo grabs Evie by the hair and hauls her head back. She spits at him. He strikes her temple.
