Page 110 of Fractured Loyalties
I open it to take another look at the things I packed quietly the last time I visited my apartment. Things I hoped I’d never need again, but still packed anyway. Things that made sense to bring once it became clear I wasn’t just staying here for a night or two.
Inside, wrapped in black cloth: a small burner, untouched, still switched off, but charged.
A syringe—sterile but emptied. A ghost of something I walked away from but never quite forgot.
And a photo. Bent at the edges, the colors faded. A woman with kind eyes. The only person who ever taught me how to vanish in plain sight without losing myself in the process.
I touch her face. Just for a second. Just long enough to remember who I used to be—and who she helped me not to become.
Then I fold the cloth back. Reset everything exactly as it was.
Because next time I reach for this chest, I won’t be uncertain.
And I may not be alone.
I close the chest slowly, pressing my palms against the lid like it might still be warm from old ghosts.
It isn’t.
The latch clicks shut with a softness that feels final, but I know better. Nothing is final in this world. Everything is just paused—waiting for permission to haunt again.
The air in the room holds a stillness I don’t trust.
Too quiet.
Too calm.
Like the quiet that settles over a body just before it convulses.
I get up and move to the window. The view looks the same—Elias’s outer perimeter, clean stone, glass angles, the faint glint of embedded sensors catching the light. Past that, a stretch of brushland. Untamed and wild. A built-in buffer between this house and the world.
And yet I swear something’s breathing on the glass.
Not literally. Not fog. Not prints.
But a feeling. A presence.
The kind of thing you feel first in your spine before you realize it’s nowhere your eyes can see.
I step back.
Then I move away from the window, toward the chest.
I pull it open and bring out the burner.
Not to switch it on, not yet.
Just to feel the weight of it in my hand. Cool. Slim. I don’t power it up—don’t even press the screen. I check the charge level through the edge-light strip. Full. Routing light stays dark. Beacon shows no pulse. Inactive. Safe. But ready.
Then I tuck it into my pocket.
It changes something in my posture immediately. Like I’ve just loaded a different version of myself under my skin. One I don’t wear often. One I hoped I’d never have to bring back here.
But if someone’s testing the lines, I need to know how far they’re willing to reach.
And I need to know it before Elias walks into the fire thinking he’s the only target.
I leave the bedroom and walk straight to the garage. It’s dim inside, smell of oil and steel and recent movement. Elias’s car is gone, of course. But the other one—the backup—sits quiet under the sensor lights. Covered in dust, like it’s been waiting.
