Chapter 10 · The Bloody Way Down

The execution platform smelled like old blood and broken promises. Rin dropped to her knees, fingers scrabbling at the rotted wood where Kael said the real recording would be. Her mother's voice was still ringing in her skull—the fake warning, the planted lie. Someone wanted her chasing ghosts.

"Move faster." Kael's voice came from behind her, low and tight. He was watching the stairs. "Guard rotation hits in four minutes."

Rin didn't look up. Her nails split against a nail head. "You could help instead of standing there like some—"

"Like some what?" He was right next to her now. She hadn't heard him move. "Say it."

She didn't. Her fingers found a seam in the wood, a panel that gave when she pressed. It swung down with a creak that made her teeth hurt. Inside was a narrow crawlspace, black as a throat, and the stink of rust.

"There." Kael knelt beside her, so close his shoulder brushed hers. Warm. Solid. Real. Which was the problem. He was real right now, in this run, but if she reset again he'd go back to being the stranger who ordered her death. "You see it?"

Rin saw it.