Page 143 of Fractured Allegiance
I pull the burner from my coat pocket, and send one line:
Marrow’s active. He’s inside my perimeter. Talk. Or I’ll start without you.
No reply.
I don't expect one.
Instead, I stare at the name on the screen until it becomes something else.
Not a person.
A trigger.
Then I head out. A few blocks down, then east.
Lydia’s building comes into view just as the sun slips behind the roofline. The second-floor window is cracked open a finger-width.
She never does that.
I take the stairs up, slow but steady. No noise. Just presence.
Then I knock.
But this time, I feel it pressing differently in my chest.
The last time I knocked on Lydia’s door, she didn’t flinch.
This time, she doesn’t answer.
I don’t knock again, I wait.
Then she opens it a few seconds later, hair tied up like she didn’t sleep, hoodie zipped to her collarbone. There's a smudge of ink on her wrist. Not makeup. Ink. Like she’s been redacting her own thoughts.
She doesn’t say hi.
Just turns around and walks back inside like I’m already forgiven or already condemned. I'm not sure which.
Her loft feels ten degrees colder than the hallway. The monitors are off. The coffee table’s a mess of corded wires and half-peeled surveillance stickers. A gun case sits open by the couch. Empty.
She’s spiraling.
“I thought you were dead,” she says, without looking up.
I step inside. Shut the door. “I was busy.”
“Doing what? Faking your own disappearance?”
Her voice is calm, but she throws something onto the counter. A plastic ziplock bag. Crinkled.
I pick it up.
Inside: a photo. Torn, then pieced together. Not expertly. Just... angrily.
It's me. Her. In this loft. Two nights ago.
The angle is tight but clear enough. Shot from outside, from above—a rooftop across the street, most likely. Long lens. Grainy but unmistakable.
I'm pressing her against the wall near the window. One hand on her waist. Her shirt slipped off one shoulder. My mouth half an inch from hers.
