The wards don't flare.
They tighten.
That's worse.
It tells me whoever crossed the boundary didn't force their way in — they drifted close enough for the compound to notice them.
I'm already moving when I spot him at the gate.
Tall. Solid. Same warm brown skin as Lila's. Blood, unmistakable.
He wears another club's colors, faded with age, patched and repaired instead of replaced.
Family-run.
Ink covers his arms and neck — tribal, deliberate, meant to anchor, not bind.
The wards hesitate around him.
I don't like that.
"I'm looking for my sister," he says calmly. "Name's Kai."
"She's alive," I reply.
His shoulders loosen a fraction.
Relief, real and unguarded.
"She came looking for my bike," he continues. "Black Ironhead. Custom tank."
So she told him.
"She wasn't wrong,"
