Page 82 of Veil of Smoke

We stop in the living room again. I look at the piano, the pictures, the sheetless couch—pieces of her I can’t shake.

“I’m burning this place,” I say, voice firm. “After we’re done with Caldera.”

He steps beside me, hands in his pockets again. “I’ll bring the matches.”

I laugh, short and dry, and it feels good. “Good.”

“I’ve moved crates I didn’t question,” Dario says suddenly. “Didn’t care what was inside. It was just weight. Just product. The cost of climbing.”

“And now?” I ask.

Dario lifts his eyes. There’s no hesitation in them. Only determination. “Now I break the ladder.”

I nod and move toward the kitchen. I walk to the lower cabinet—the one Camila used to hide cookies in, swearing she was “saving them for after piano practice.”

It still creaks the same when I open it.

There’s a rusted tin box tucked in the back. I pull it out, brush the grime from the lid, and open it.

Inside: a chain.

Camila’s locket.

The match to mine.

The silver is dull, almost pewter now, and the clasp is bent from years of being opened and closed and opened again. There’s a crack in the casing that runs down one edge—Dad tried to fix it once with glue, but it held wrong.

I close my fingers around it and turn back to him.

“She wasn’t just a girl who got lost,” I say. “She was my girl. My sister. The reason I stayed alive some nights when I couldn’t find a single thing worth breathing for.”

I step forward. Hold the locket out.

Dario looks at it like it might bite.

“You destroy the shipment,” I say, “and you carry her name when you do.”

He takes it slowly. Doesn’t put it on. Just holds it in his palm, thumb tracing the cracked edge.

“She’s not a file,” I whisper. “Not a cautionary tale. She’s the reason I walk into fire now instead of away from it.”

His mouth moves, just a fraction.

“I will,” he says. “For her.” He looks at me again, more quiet now. “And for you.”

I exhale. It doesn’t come easy.

We sink to the floor. The tile is cold through my jeans, and the light creeping through the blinds is pale and strange—like the sun doesn’t know if it’s allowed to shine here anymore.

He leans back against the cabinet. Our shoulders almost touch, but not quite. The locket sits in his palm like a coin of blood debt.

“What was she like?” he asks, after a long minute.

I smile, but it tastes like iron.

“She once punched a boy in the mouth for calling my hair ‘bramble.’ Then cried all night because his tooth chipped.”

He chuckles. A breath more than a laugh.

---