The silence of the street was thick, broken only by the echo of our footsteps. Pipes hissed faintly above us, the air dense with the faint smell of oil and metal decay. We were close now, the restricted sector door loomed ahead like a final judgment, rusted edges swallowed in shadows. A checkpoint to the unknown.
Krane walked beside me, close enough that our arms brushed occasionally. He hadn’t left my side since we started moving, not once. He watched everything, every corner, every flicker of shadow. And always Braken.
The rebel leader had drifted a few steps ahead with Calian, the two of them speaking in low voices, too quiet to catch. Calian’s expression was taut, like something was gnawing at him. Braken’s, as usual, was unreadable—half smirk, half calculation. I couldn’t tell if th
