Chapter 20 · The Gunshot in the Recording

The monitor showed Seren Vale putting a bullet through Ian Mercer’s chest.

She didn’t blink.

The footage played on the archive wall, washed in blue light and static. Ian stood beneath the civic dome with one hand raised, his mouth moving around words the system had stripped out. Seren stood six feet away, blood on her sleeve, a detonator in her right hand.

Then the gun came up.

Nora swore under her breath. “That’s not—”

“Don’t pause it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were.”

“I was thinking about it.”

“Think faster.”

Nora’s injured arm hung close to her ribs. Blood had soaked through the makeshift wrap around her bicep, but she still had one hand on the archive console. Her fingers tapped across the glass, chasing the file through layers of civic security.

Ian sat against a stack of collapsed storage cases, his good hand pressed over the bullet hole in his shoulder. His face had gone gray. Not from the pain. Seren knew that look now.

He had seen this before.

“Where did you get it?” he asked.

Seren kept her eyes on the recording. “You tell me.”

“I haven’t seen that version.”

“Funny.”

“Seren.”

“Shut up.