Page 46 of Make Them Cry
Power, returning to its rightful owner.
I send one more note toSopranette:Next time you want attention, try kindness. It scales better.
He doesn’t reply.
River sags back in her chair, breath leaving like she’s been holding it for months. Then she looks at me.
Not the mask—me.
“Again,” she says.
I should say no. I should cite burnout and the number of favors we’ve already burned this week.
“Okay,” I say.
We hunt two more trolls before the sun trails off the warehouse windows. Smaller fish. Loud mouths. One loses access to his guild after we pipe his DMs to the admin. One gets a call from his mother because Render is evil and family plans are public on Facebook if you know where to look.
River learns fast. Adjusts faster. She has a programmer’s brain—pattern-seeking, unsentimental, funny when the pressure needle redlines.
She catches me looking at her hands again and quirks a brow. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“Your thumbs are right,” I say, deadpan.
She rolls her eyes and laughs, low and warm. I store the sound somewhere under my sternum.
We eat cold dumplings on the floor while packet captures run like credit scenes. I maneuver in the mask while she laughs at me, eating a cupcake as she does. She tells me, unprompted, about early days at NovaPlay. About Mason.
“We dated when I started,” she says. “He was bright. Charming. Knew where to find the good candy. And he…I thought he really liked me.”
I don’t move. Breathing feels impolite.
“It changed when I got promoted. He did this thing where he’d ask questions just to catch me wrong. Or ‘fix’ my code when the only thing broken was his ego. I saw him for what he truly was. Honestly, I can’t remember what I ever saw in him.” She picks at a chopstick wrapper, shredding it to confetti. “When I ended it, he said one day he’d show everyone who I ‘really’ was.”
“What did you say?” My voice is smoke.
“That I hoped one day he’d meet her.” She huffs a laugh. “I didn’t expect him to try toinventher first.”
Silence sits between us, not heavy, just present. I want to tell her Mason’s days are numbered. Because even though he’s fired, he could still be very much behind this. That the lion she thought was in the tall grass is really a mutt on a leash. That we’re already shortening it.
Instead, I say, “Today you made three men less dangerous. That counts.”
She looks at me like she wants to read my face through the mask. Not just the angles—the man under them.
“Why do you care?” she asks softly.
Because I’ve been in love with you longer than is advisable for anyone’s health. Because you made a bug named Biscuit a hill you would die on and I fell a little in love with your stubborn mercy. Because when you fight, you fight fair, and when you fall, you fall forward.
“Because you deserve quiet,” I say. “And because they don’t know who they picked.”
She sucks in a breath—tiny, sharp. Her knee is still against mine. I can feel heat through denim. I’m twenty-seven and somehow sixteen at the same time, obliterated by proximity.
“Let me see you,” she murmurs.
It isn’t a dare. It isn’t a game. It’s… a petition.
