Darlene, seated in the corner of my room with a contraband pastry, lifts her coffee. “Finally, someone sensible.”
Two weeks after the zoo, Arturo comes to the hospital.
He does not come alone. Cleo stands beside him in a severe black coat, silver hair pinned cleanly, eyes sharp. A lawyer accompanies them with a sealed case. I know before they speak that they are not here socially.
Evie sits beside me on the bed because she has decided chairs are “emotionally distant.” Her shoulder remains braced, but she is healing. Her color has returned. Her stubbornness never left.
Arturo looks at her first. “Miss Mercy.”
“Absolutely not,” she says.
He blinks. “I have not asked anything.”
“You look like a man about to offer something terrible in expensive packaging.”
Cleo’s mouth twitches.
Arturo recovers. “Accurate, perhaps.”
I look at the sealed case. “No.”
“You also have not heard the offer.”
“I know the offer.”
He sighs and sets the case on the small table. “Lenrog named no formal successor. Ron’s claim is dead. Several factions are already making bids. Most are cowards, opportunists, or butchers.”
“Flattering group.”
“Yes.” Arturo meets my gaze. “They would follow you.”
Evie’s hand tightens on mine.
I say nothing.
Arturo continues carefully. “Not all willingly at first. But enough. You have fear, legitimacy, restraint, and public myth. You killed Ron only after giving mercy. You saved civilians. You dismantled operations without indiscriminate slaughter. In our world, that makes you almost impossible.”
“In your world.”
“Yes.”
“I do not want your world.”
Cleo folds her arms. “Want is irrelevant if the vacuum pulls you in.”
“It will not.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Arturo studies me. “You could reshape it.”
“That is what powerful men tell themselves before the shape changes them.”
Silence follows.
Evie looks at me with something warm and fierce shining in her eyes.
