Page 88 of Run of Ruin

The question sliced through the air, through me. Every eyein the room snapped to Ezra, his expression unreadable, save for the flicker of fear that passed through his gaze before he schooled it away. The audience held its collective breath, waiting for me to crack, to recoil, to deliver the betrayal they hungered for.

I stared into Ezra’s eyes. The world narrowed until it was just us. Every memory between us flashed like lightning.

A choice.

A line in the sand.

I knew who he was, or at least the part the world wanted me to fear. But I also knew who he’d been to me. And whatever darkness lived in his past, I’d seen worse.

I turned slowly to Annalese, my voice steady as stone. “I’d argue Praxis has a higher body count than anyone,” I said, letting the words hang heavy in the room, “and yet here we all are… trusting them.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Thorne stiffened beside me, his jaw clenched so tight I thought it might shatter. Briar’s fingers curled into fists against her thighs. Ezra went impossibly still, his face pale, eyes locked on me like he wasn’t sure whether to thank me or mourn me.

And Zaffir looked like he was about to be sick.

I’d done it. There was no taking it back.

“Well,” Annalese forced a brittle laugh. “That’s a bold statement.”

“My story isn’t a happy one,” Ezra said, his voice low but steady, slicing through the tension like a drawn blade. The cameras shifted, the crowd leaned in, and for the first time in this entire farce of a show, no one was looking at me.

They were looking at him.

“There’s death in my history,” he went on, his gaze fixed on the floor, the weight of his words dragging the airheavier with each syllable. “But not by my hands. Not the way you seem to be alluding to, at least.”

I opened my mouth, “You don’t have to-”

He stopped me with a sad smile. “I do.”

He took a breath and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, every inch of him stripped bare in a way I don’t think anyone had ever seen before.

“I had a best friend,” he began quietly. “His name was Kade. We grew up together, same small corner of Canyon, same trouble, same scraped knees and empty pockets. When the resources dried up and people started choosing themselves to look out for, we chose each other. Moved in together when we were old enough. Shared everything. He was my family when I didn’t have one left.”

The room hung on his words, the mysterious, silent man finally speaking more than a sentence. Even Annalese stayed quiet.

“When times got bad, we took whatever jobs we could find. Last winter, the only work left was in the mines outside the southern barricades. Dangerous work. Shoddy equipment, collapsing shafts. Everyone knew it was a death trap, but if you wanted to eat, you didn’t get to be picky.” I knew the mines he spoke of. I’d almost considered working there myself when Jax was growing up and needing to eat more than I could scavenge or afford.

He swallowed hard, his jaw working like he was fighting a war behind his teeth. “I was supposed to be on shift that day. Me. Kade wasn’t even on the schedule. But I’d gotten sick, some fever that had me seeing double. I was trying to tell the foreman I couldn’t go down, and he’d threatened to fire me if I left him short staffed, but Kade… he just grabbed his gear and said, ‘I got you, Ez. You’d do it for me.’ And then he went.”

I felt my throat tighten. Ezra’s voice cracked just a little, but he kept going.

“There was a collapse. Shaft Nine. They buried him alive down there with seven other men.” He stared out at the crowd now, his expression sharp, eyes glassy but unyielding. “When we finally got down there and dug them out… Kade was….”

Someone in the audience let out a quiet, broken sound.

“But it wasn’t an accident,” Ezra continued, his voice colder now. Sharper. “The supports were rotten. The emergency systems failed. The reports said they knew it was unstable, they recommended serious repairs before it was fit for work again, but it was cheaper to send men in anyway.”

A ripple of horror moved through the room.

“I found proof,” Ezra said. “Receipts, reports they tried to bury. Testimonies. I went to the authorities, to the press. I thought… I thought if I showed them, if I screamed loud enough, someone would do something.”

He let out a bitter laugh. “They did something alright.” The tension in the room drew tighter.

“They planted evidence,” Ezra spat. “Made it look like I sabotaged the shaft. That I’d rigged explosives to cause the collapse. Said I had a grudge against the company, against Kade. That I’d killed him.”

I felt a chill run through me as his eyes locked on mine.

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