Legacy Line: Bloodline

The crowds moved like slow rivers, pulling me with them, but never close enough to touch. "Keep your eyes open," Miles always said. "And your mouth closed." I drifted past the crumbling stalls of the Fracture Zone market, notebook tucked under my jacket, my boots kicking up dust. Neon signs sputtered above broken windows, casting a sickly red glow that clung to the peeling concrete like old blood. "Prices are doubled today," a vendor barked to a woman clutching wilted vegetables. "Tripled tomorrow if you don't move," another voice snapped back, laughter too sharp, too thin. I didn’t stop. I never stopped. My fingers brushed the hidden wire in my coat sleeve, recording every sound, every crack in the sidewalk, every desperation-soaked deal. Around me, the city breathed like a wounded animal. And, as I always did, I swore I would not be one of the ones who looked away. I slipped between two leaning stalls, the smell of burnt sugar and rust filling my nose. A cracked wall loomed ahead, plastered with old regime posters. Faces I didn’t need to see to know. Freedom Is Obedience, they screamed in faded ink. I leaned my shoulder against the crumbling concrete, casually pulling out my battered notebook. My pen tapped once, twice, three times: the signal to Elena, wherever she was listening. “Ten more checkpoints this week,” I murmured under my breath. "Corner of Fifth and Concord. New drones deployed. Civilian count low." My handwriting was a mess of slashes and loops, a private language learned by necessity, not trust. A man staggered past me, drunk or pretending to be. “You’re wasting your ink, girl,” he slurred, flashing a yellowed smile. “Ain’t no truth left to write about.” I didn’t look up. "Truth," I whispered, "is the only thing worth bleeding for." The streets swallowed me again, a hundred bodies brushing past, none touching. Shadows in secondhand coats huddled by flickering street lamps. Mothers bartered scraps. Children darted between broken vendor carts, their laughter brittle as glass. "Move it," a man grunted, bumping my shoulder. I barely blinked. Another voice, older, somewhere behind me: "Keep your head down, sweetheart. Eyes on the ground." No one met my gaze. No one wanted to see anyone anymore. It was easier that way, safer. I pressed my notebook tighter against my ribs and let myself disappear into the current. Names didn’t matter here. Faces blurred into smoke and smudged neon, all washed in the same dirty light. I wasn’t Avery Quinn, underground journalist, rebel daughter. I was no one. And maybe, just maybe, being no one was the only way to survive long enough to tell the truth. The door groaned low as I slipped into the café, a whisper of rust on old hinges. Inside, the air tasted of burnt coffee and damp stone. A man at the counter poured two cups, his hand steady, but his eyes never leaving the battered mirror above the bar. Across the room, a woman scribbled furiously in a ledger, her pen scratching too loudly in the hush. "Clock’s broken," she said without looking up. "Been noon for three years." "Nothing worth counting past that," the barista muttered, sliding a chipped mug across the counter toward me. I nodded once, no smile, and found a seat by the cracked window. My chair wobbled. My hand stayed near my pocket, close to the hidden mic switch. A single cough broke the silence. A teaspoon clinked against porcelain, sharp as a gunshot. No music. No chatter. Just the hum of people pretending not to watch the door. The saucer clinked down harder than necessary. “Milk’s extra,” the courier said under his breath, voice too casual. I didn’t look up right away. Eyes up meant eyes marked. Instead, I brushed my fingers across the saucer, feeling the corner of a folded note hidden underneath the chipped porcelain. "Rough morning?" I murmured, just loud enough for him to hear. The man chuckled, but it cracked halfway through. “Storm’s coming,” he said, glancing once, twice at the door. “Winds change fast in Velastra.” His hand shook slightly as he wiped nonexistent sweat from his brow. It was tattooed with a faded snake winding around a cross. A bad sign. He was scared. Not for me. For himself. "Stay dry," I said quietly. The courier nodded once and backed away, pretending to adjust his coat. No one stopped him. No one had to. In this city, you ran scared, or you didn’t run at all. The door creaked shut behind the courier, and with it, the café’s fragile hum died. No spoon stirred. No chair scraped. Even the battered ceiling fan above us seemed to hesitate mid-turn. I kept my head down, forcing my pen to move across the page, but every nerve sharpened. I could feel it. The pressure in the air shifting, thick and sour. At the corner table, a young woman set her coffee down too hard. "You hear that?" she whispered. "Nothing to hear," her companion muttered, but he pushed his cup away untouched. The barista wiped the same spot on the counter, over and over. Old instincts, the kind you don’t teach, prickled down my spine. A beat of cold brushed my ankles, the kind of chill that didn't come from any door left open. Whatever storm the courier had warned about—it wasn’t coming. It was already here. "You hear about it?" a rough whisper broke the stillness, two tables over. I didn’t turn my head. I didn’t need to. Voices like that didn’t carry unless someone wanted them to. "The ghost file," the man said again, leaning in so close to his companion their heads almost touched. "Encrypted so deep, not even the regime’s top dogs can crack it." "Fairytales," the other muttered, voice dry as old paper. "Maybe. Maybe not." A pause, just long enough to make me strain to hear. "But you find it... they say you don't live long enough to regret it." I traced the edge of my notebook with one finger, pretending to jot notes. The cracks in the plaster above their heads seemed wider now, splintering like veins across the wall. Like the city was listening too, and bracing to break. Some secrets, it whispered, should stay buried. A laugh, too thin to be real, scraped through the air. "Some things," one of the men said, voice pitched just above a whisper, "are hidden for a reason." His companion didn’t laugh. Neither did I. I kept my pen moving, scrawling nothing, breathing too evenly. But the words caught somewhere between my ribs, an invisible snag pulling tight. "Maybe we don’t need to find every skeleton," the first man added, half-joking, half-praying. His cup rattled against the saucer as he set it down, his fingers betraying what his mouth pretended to hide. Across the wall behind them, the cracks in the plaster deepened under the weight of old posters. Victor Quinn’s frozen smile peeled back at the edges, the ink smudging like a wound reopened. I swallowed the unease. Hard. Information was survival. Fear was death. And I had never been afraid of ghosts. The door hissed shut behind me, swallowing the café’s unnatural quiet. Outside, the cold air cut sharper, threading through the alleyways like invisible knives. I tucked the notebook tighter under my jacket and turned toward the main street. Then I saw it, just beyond the reach of the flickering streetlight. The old mural sprawled across the brick wall, half-hidden under years of grime and smoke. Truth Will Rise, it promised in bold, weathered letters. But a new spiderweb of cracks had split the paint into jagged shards. The words looked broken now. Fading. I slowed without thinking, reaching out. My fingertips brushed the surface, rough and flaking, dust rising from the touch. A piece of the wall chipped off and tumbled to the ground. Above me, the neon lights sputtered once—twice—then dimmed into a sickly glow. Something was cracking, all right. And maybe... it wasn't just the walls. Dorian Vale stood with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his black coat, the fabric slick with city dust and unseen tension. The crowd surged and dipped around him, a restless tide of worn boots and threadbare coats, but Dorian didn’t move. He watched the girl with the battered notebook and the stubborn walk as she traced the cracked mural with her fingertips. A group of vendors argued over stale bread to his left. A child sobbed somewhere behind him. No one noticed Dorian, and he intended to keep it that way. "Sector Four patrols rerouted," a low voice buzzed in his earpiece. He didn’t respond. Didn’t even blink. Under the sputtering streetlamps, his face remained unreadable, carved from some quiet war between duty and something he didn’t dare name. The girl turned, slipping into the mouth of a side street. Dorian Vale, a ghost of a bloodline, followed her into the dark. Dorian watched her slip into the narrow alley, swallowed by peeling brick and restless shadows. He stayed where he was, planted in the crowd’s indifferent current, invisible yet tethered. His fingers flexed once inside his coat pocket, brushing the cold metal of the silencer he hadn't needed to draw. Not tonight. Not for her. The radio buzzed against his ear again, a static heartbeat. "There’s a regime sweep two blocks east. Targets moving fast." "Copy," someone whispered back, sharp and sure. Dorian said nothing. His gloved hand moved to the comm switch tucked beneath his collar. He flicked it off with a soft click. The world fell quieter without orders hissing in his ear. For a long moment, he did nothing but breathe the cold, cracked air. Watching. Calculating. Not yet. She wasn't ready. Neither was he. Instead, Dorian folded himself into the shadows like a second skin. And waited. Dorian stepped off the cracked curb without hesitation, slipping into the alley’s mouth where Avery’s silhouette had disappeared. The darkness folded around him, soft and heavy, swallowing the fractured light of the streetlamps behind. His boots moved silent over broken glass and loose stones, each step measured, unhurried. He wasn’t hunting. He wasn’t chasing. He was guarding. Ten paces between them. Always ten. Enough space for her to believe she was alone. Enough space for him to intercept anything that tried to prove her wrong. A drunken shout echoed from the far end of the alley. Dorian’s hand brushed the inside of his jacket, resting lightly against the hidden weight there. Ready but unseen. Ahead, Avery didn’t look back. She never did. He followed her anyway, moving like a shadow not meant to be caught by light, a silent promise stitched into the cold breath of Velastra.