Kira Vex's Arc

Chapter 3 of 8

Kira stood at the top of the tower with the blade in her hand and a man wearing her face waiting on the street below. The tracker was gone for now. He had done that. It did not mean he was safe. She had one hour of cover and one question she had to answer before she used it: friend, or trap. She went down slow. She kept the blade lit and low against her leg. On the ground floor she pulled the pipe from the door and stepped out. He had not moved. Up close his face was worse. Same scar. Same mouth. He was maybe ten years older than her, lines at the eyes she did not have yet. He held the small black device out flat on his palm so she could see it. His other hand stayed open at his side. "I have two minutes of talk in me," he said. "Then we walk. The mask on you drifts." His voice was hers, pitched lower. It made her stomach turn. "Name," she said. "You already know it." "Say it." He said her name. He said the training yard where she got the scar. He said the name of her handler, a name she had never spoken aloud in this century. Any of it could be a lift from her head. She had been briefed on that. Trackers were not the only thing a tear could push through. She raised the blade. "Prove it costs you something." He looked at her a second. Then he crouched and set the masking device on the ground between them. He stepped back from it. Three paces. Four. Her wrongness bloomed back into her chest like a held breath let out. Somewhere across the rooftops, an animal noise turned toward her again. Hooves on stone. Not fast yet. Coming. "Pick it up," he said. "Or don't. But I'm not armed and I just gave you the only thing keeping you alive." She stared at him. A tracker would not do that. A trap that wanted her would not do that. She grabbed the device. Her wrongness folded flat again. The hooves out past the buildings slowed, confused, drifted off. Something small moved at the corner of the tower. A dog. A shepherd pup, one eye scarred shut, ribs showing. It watched them both and did not bark. He did not look at it. He was watching her. "Walk with me," he said. "I'll tell you what you came here to stop. I'll tell you who sent me after you and why they lied to you about the boy." Kira lowered the blade. She did not put it away. "Talk while we move," she said. She followed the man with her face into the street. The pup fell in behind them, quiet, three steps back.