Page 76 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

“Contradictions.” I crouch and draw in the salt with my knife point. “The receiver records route choices. We give it routes no competent person would choose. We split heat signatures. We repeat false marks. We create a field pattern that says Kessa is either brilliant, concussed, or three people arguing inside one body.”

Lio blinks. “Can we do that?”

“Sadly, I have been training for this my whole life.” Rhazek looks like he’s about to say something, so I shift my glare to him. “Do not.”

“I said nothing.”

“Your face was preparing.”

“It has poor discipline.”

“Apparently a theme.”

The blood relay under his ribs gives one faint pulse. I look away because the map is watching. I will not give it clean data. Or so I tell myself. It has absolutely nothing to do with the burning sensation growing in my stomach when I lock eyes with his. Nothing at all.

“Syin,” I say. “Take Orek and leave three obvious wing marks toward the south ridge, then double back on stone. Renn, you stay visible with me for thirty paces, then vanish behind the white shelf. Lio and Maro, I need two dust lines crossing. One slow, one panicked.”

Maro’s eyebrows lift. “Do you want genuine panic or theatrical?”

“Whichever is faster.”

“Finally, my gifts are valued,” Maro says.

“Rhazek,” I say.

The hook brightens before he answers and I stop. He stops too. Good. Not good. Useful. I sign instead. Two fingers to my eyes. South ridge. Hold.

He reads it because he probably learned my hand signs out of stubbornness and trauma before I knew I had given him a lesson. Or because he’s a jerk. Probably that.

He nods. The hook doesn’t pulse. A small victory with sharp edges.

For the next stretch of burning afternoon, we become liars with feet.

Syin and Orek carve wing marks into sand, then step backward on stone. Renn limps visibly though he isn’t hurt and walks clean where the salt will record him. Lio and Maro throw dust in crossing lines, one high, one low, making ghost bodies where no bodies are. I draw three false command pauses, none in my true rhythm. Rhazek stays silent and marks the receiver’s pull by pressure, breath, and the color from his side.

No one says my name. No one touches the map. No one bleeds near green. The receiver pings four times. Each ping catches a different lie. By the fifth, the glow beneath the salt shelf shutters, then brightens around a new mark beyond the canyon road.

Small. Sharp. Repeating.

Once.

Pause.

Again.

Renn exhales. “Another tracker?”

“Receiver core,” Rhazek says, his voice low as he shakes his head.

The dead drop, finally showing its position. The mark pulses again. This time, the blood relay under Rhazek’s ribs answers before his throat does. His breath cuts short. I take one step toward him, then stop so hard my knees ache because the green map flares at my movement.

Of course it wants distance and rescue and every stupid honest thing people do when someone they shouldn’t care about is hurt. No, it doesn’t want anything. It records.

I force myself to turn away from Rhazek and look at the mark.

“There,” I say. “That is where we end this.”

Syin’s gaze slides toward me. “End?”