Chapter 12 · Wanted Together

The bounty screen updates while they're still inside the forge.

Kade sees it first. The cracked display mounted on the factory's east wall flickers, then stabilizes on two faces. His. Mira's.

His bounty went up. Hers just appeared.

"We need to move," he says.

Mira's already at the window, one hand on the sill, eyes tracking the street below. "How many exits?"

"Two. Maybe three if you count the coolant shaft, but that dumps straight into the market and we're not going out there."

She turns. Her uniform's gone. She ditched it two floors down and now she's in a stolen work jacket, sleeves rolled, hair tied back with a strip of torn fabric. She looks different. Sharper. Less like the guard who dragged him into an interrogation room and more like someone who knows what it's like to run.

"The shaft," she says.

"You serious?"

"The front's already covered. I saw three crews positioning on the north access when we came in." She moves past him, scanning the room. "Where's the entrance?"

Kade points. The grate's half-hidden behind a stack of crates, rusted at the edges but still intact. "It's a straight drop for the first ten feet.