Page 137 of The Vagabond

We stand there a beat. Two wolves circling the same corpse, deciding who gets to gnaw the carcass.

“You came because you couldn’t afford not to,” I say. “Because everything I have on the Aviary is a spark. And you know I’m holding the fucking gasoline.”

He’s a smart man not to deny it.

“You want immunity,” he says.

“I want blood,” I correct. “Immunity to follow.”

“And the Aviary?”

“I’ll give you every last bastard involved. Every name. Every asset. Every hidden ledger and offshore account. The entire Aviary, gutted from the inside.”

“And you want a badge to do it?”

I take a step closer, slow and deliberate. “No. I want to finish what I started without some wet-behind-the-ears compliance officer breathing down my neck and labeling me unstable every time I draw my weapon.”

Halbridge folds his arms. “Youareunstable.”

“I’m effective.”

There’s a pause before he speaks again.

“I lost good people in that operation,” he says finally.

“I lost my goddamn humanity.”

His eyes narrow. “You think that girl—Andrade—is worth all this?”

I don’t blink. “This is not about her. I need IA off my back. And I want immunity from prosecution.”

Halbridge exhales. Long. Controlled. He opens a folder from under his coat. Slides it across the floor between us. I’m glad he came prepared.

I scoop the file up, glance down. Terms. Conditions. NDA so tight it might as well be a noose. A classified clearance level above what I held before. I’ll be invisible. Off-book. Disposable. It’s the perfect alibi for a ‘serial killer’ like me.

“Sign it,” he says. “You get one shot. If you fuck this up?—”

“I won’t.”

“What happened to you?” His voice is gentle, but the question slices all the same—sharp and insulting. As if the ruin standing in front of him is a mystery, and I haven’t been bleeding out in plain sight this whole damn time. As if I didn’t scream for help in a thousand silent ways he chose not to hear. Like I didn’t unravel in front of him piece by piece and he wasn’t there when the light went out in my eyes.

I lift my head slowly, eyes locking with his.

“What happened to me?” I repeat, voice colder now. “Realityhappened. It broke me. So don’t look at me like I’m some puzzle you can’t solve, when you already threw away all my broken pieces.”

I uncap the pen. My name carves into the page like a wound reopening.

He watches me sign the document, then says, almost like an afterthought, “There’s talk of a presidential run in two years. Some of the names on that list? They’re fundraising it.”

“Then I’ll slit the campaign’s throat on live TV.”

Another pause. Another glance. Then he nods once. “Welcome back to the dark side.”

“I never left.”

He turns to go.

“Saxon,” he says over his shoulder. “What’s next after this?”

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