Speed home
Ayisha left the office like someone propelled from underwater. The city felt different, meaner, sharper. She sprinted down the few blocks to the subway; the cold wind slapping her face felt like judgment. The idea that Tessa might have used them… used her shredded something inside. Trust, once broken, was not like spilled water. It soaked into floorboards and left a slick you could almost slide on.
The ride home was a jumble of memories: Tessa’s laugh when they closed their first small order, the two of them in matching robes after nights of low sleep and high adrenaline, the phone calls to factories that now read like a script to a life that had just been unmasked. Ayisha’s mind raced ahead, imagining the confrontation she would have: clamps on wrists, the voice sharp as a
