Chapter 25 · The Camp Wants More Than a Heart

Kade bled through the pressure patch in under an hour. Mara watched the red seep past the synth-skin seal and didn't say what they both already knew: the bullet cracked something the patch couldn't reach. He sat on the floor of Juno's old storage nest with his back against a crate marked NON-POTABLE and his eyes on the cracked tablet in Mara's lap.

"Your brother's at Camp Talus," Juno said from the doorway. She had a smoke going and a knife out, peeling an apple in one long spiral. "North district. Corporate labor facility. Oryx runs the contract."

Mara didn't look up. The holo-message sat frozen on the screen, Silas Grave's face locked mid-smile. Bring the core to the camp. Forty-eight hours. Come alone, or the kid stops being useful.

"How many guards?" Kade's voice came out flat. The kind of flat that meant he was counting exits.

"Thirty on rotation," Juno said. "Cameras every ten meters. Perimeter drones. And before you ask, no, I don't have a layout. That place doesn't leak." She bit into the apple. "You walk in there, you're not walking out."

Mara set the tablet down. Her hands wanted to shake. She didn't let them.