Page 69 of Make Them Cry
Juno’s hand finds my elbow. “We’ll prove it. And we’ll do it clean.”
I rub my thumb along the edge of my watch, a nervous habit I’ve had since Lark gave it to me for graduation. The leather’s worn into the shape of my wrist. Everything is shaped into the shape of River now—my day, my night, the way I breathe when a notification pings at 2 a.m.
“She told me not to disappear,” I say.
“Then don’t,” Juno says simply. “Tell her where you are when you can. Give her lights instead of shadows.”
Arrow’s gaze sharpens. “You told her how you feel?”
“Not… in a sentence,” I admit. “But she knows I’m in it. She knows.”
Juno’s smile turns smug. “About time.”
Arrow points his fork at me like a gavel. “New boundaries, then. No dropping in on the feed when you’re not on watch. No ‘just one more text’ at 3 a.m. We keep our heads. If Regent escalates, we need you smart, not feral.”
“Define feral,” I say.
“Your wall has a fist hole from the splash screen day,” Juno reminds me.
“Fair.”
Arrow’s face softens by degrees. “We’ll get him.”
“We’ll get them,” I correct. “Regent and whoever else is hiding behind the HR firewall.”
He nods. “Them.”
I push up from the chair and pace, because sitting still makes the thoughts too loud. “We need fail-safes. If Tasha doesn’t bite, we pivot. If she does, we need to capture without exposing Juno. I’ll stage a Faraday sleeve for her phone—‘charger’ that blocks outbound. If Tasha asks to charge, we sandbox it.”
Juno winces. “She’s not dumb.”
“Neither are we,” Arrow says. “And we’re patient.”
My phone buzzes with the team thread lighting up.
Knight:Got a whisper. Regent scheduled a late-night mod sync Friday, 10pm. If Tasha’s on that call, we’ll see the traffic.
Render:I can get eyes on the alley behind Compliance. They use it as a smoking area / gossip fountain.
Ozzy:I’ll park on the next block with my prettiest antennae. If anyone sneezes in LTE, I’ll know their blood type.
I type back:Girls’ night Friday. Juno + River + Tasha + Lark. Keep it quiet. We want signal, not fireworks.
Thumbs-up emojis roll in.
Juno stands, stretches, and kisses Arrow’s temple—a small, domestic thing that hits me like a flashbang because I cansuddenly see River in this room, bare feet, hoodie, claiming a mug. The world tilts again and lands a millimeter to the right.
“She’s going to be okay,” Juno says, reading my face like a debug log. “You know that, right?”
“I want her to bemorethan okay,” I say before I can talk myself out of it. “I want quiet mornings and stupid fights about laundry and a world where her name only trends when she writes something brilliant.”
Juno grins. “Tell her that.”
“I will.”
“Good.” She pads toward the kitchen. “I’m going to start a group text that pretends to be about face masks and is actually about entrapment.”
Arrow salutes her with his fork. “That’s the most on-brand sentence you’ve ever said.”
