Ky'Lyra counted the coins in her palm for the third time. Still not enough. She needed twelve hundred more to buy out her contract with the dealer who owned her. Every tracking job brought her closer to freedom, closer to the day she could stop hunting people for someone else's profit. Her clawed fingers closed around the metal discs. The city's lower districts always had work for someone who could track what others couldn't find. She pocketed the coins and headed toward the job board, her enhanced senses already picking up the scent of fear and desperation that clung to every contract posted there. The job board stood in an alley between two warehouses. Ky'Lyra scanned the posted contracts, each one a promise of coin and another compromise with the monster she'd become. A missing hybrid. A runaway test subject. A debtor who knew too much. She tore down a high-paying contract and tucked it into her belt. Twelve hundred more coins, then she'd be done. She'd already picked out the place—a reinforced metal building two districts over. The Ironclad Armory sat empty, its owner recently deceased. She'd buy it and run her own tracking business, keep the profits for herself instead of feeding them to a parasite. No more threats. No more leashes. Just her skills, her terms, and enough coin to sleep without dreaming of that seven-year-old's face.