Page 108 of Fractured Allegiance
I pause at the threshold and turn. "I'll check in when I know more."
She nods once. "Be careful."
"You too."
The door closes softly behind me.
I stand in the hallway for a moment, listening to the locks slide into place on the other side.
Then I walk toward the stairs, knowing I'll be back sooner than I should.
And knowing she'll open the door when I do.
The street feels louder than it should.
Not traffic. Not voices. Just the air itself, dragging past me like it knows I don’t belong in it anymore.
I keep walking, hands in my pockets, head down. The burner phone buzzes once against my thigh. No ringtone. No flashing screen. Just one precise vibration: Naomi’s signal.
I duck into the mouth of an alley I’ve used before, one block east, one building behind.
The call connects before I can say anything.
“You’re sloppy,” she says.
I lean back against the brick. “Nice to hear your voice too.”
“This isn’t banter. You stayed in that loft too long.”
Of course, she knows I’m here. “Something about her surveillance feed, I had to check.”
“You compromised the loop.”
“I only checked.”
She exhales. It’s not a sigh, or overt frustration. Something flatter. Professional disappointment.
“I warned you once,” she says. “You don’t get to care.”
“It wasn’t a risk I couldn’t contain, if I will get all the inside tips for the mission, I have to strategize, she’s the one soft enough to be my link,” I lie.
“Bullshit. The moment you start standing inside the blast radius for the sake of one person, it stops being containment. It starts being suicide.”
I close my eyes. “I’m aware.”
“Are you? Because your behavior suggests otherwise. You’re drifting, Silas. You’ve forgotten what the job is.”
“I know exactly what the job is.”
“No. You know what you want it to be.”
I don’t answer.
Naomi keeps going. She’s not finished, and she doesn’t waste breath unless it’s necessary. “She’s not part of the assignment.”
“She is now.”
“No,” Naomi says, harder. “She’s a variable. You don’t have room for variables. Not with the raid window closing.”
