Fortuna steps forward without even sparing me a glance.

  “Let me handle this loser. I need to blow off steam.”

  Her tone is sharp, almost light, like this chaos is nothing more than a release. Topi answers immediately, stiffer.

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  He lunges without warning. His kick snaps straight at her. Fortuna blocks with a clean, precise motion. The impact lands heavy. Topi loses his footing when he comes down. Bad recovery. Fortuna takes it instantly. A straight punch, crisp. His jaw absorbs it. He backs up.

  She’s controlling the exchange for now. I take the opening. I move toward the man who stayed in the rear. I walk slowly to size him up. Fortuna and Aris are already engaged. No one is coming to help me.

  He exhales cigar smoke with lazy ease. This man, I’m sure of it, plays a major role in the human trafficking. He wasn’t there when Topi and Mato bought me, but I know he’s just as guilty, maybe worse. He could be the one giving orders. It’s decided. I’m going to kill him.

  “You in a hurry to die, bastard?”

  His voice is steady. His body is loose. I don’t sense any urgency in him. I stretch my shoulders, letting them drop. I can’t underestimate him. Calm men are rarely harmless.

  “Who are you?”

  A rough voice answers without raising its tone.

  “The Word Hunters Guild. You, your little friends, and that girl, you’re coming with us.”

  So he finally shows his real face. He doesn’t want to buy us, he wants to take us outright. Word Hunters. What a stupid name. At least their goal is honest. I stare at him.

  “I see. You’re all the same. All you care about is using other people’s Mots.”

  He claps slowly, a smile barely there.

  “You’ve figured out how this world works. Good job.”

  He spits out cigar smoke. This time it doesn’t fade. It spreads around him like something alive. The fog expands. Edges disappear. He fades into it.

  I can’t see anything. Smoke swallows me whole. I lose my sense of space. I turn in place. Once. Twice. Nothing. No distinct sound. No moving shadow. So that’s his ability. Fine. Nothing surprising for someone like him. A coward’s gift, hiding behind his smoke. Then we’ll play on his ground. A burn cuts across my back. I try to grab his arm, but he’s already gone.

  His voice echoes, impossible to place.

  “My name is Cigue. My Mots is Cigar. Now that I’ve marked you, every time I smoke, you weaken. I don’t really like fighting. You don’t mind if I stay hidden while I drain you quietly, do you?”

  I don’t answer. My legs go heavy all at once. My energy dips slightly. He just took a puff. I’m almost certain. He hides in his smoke and wears me down from a distance. A strategy worthy of him. Cowardly. This is bad. I don’t really have a solution. Fine. I start running. I have to get out of this smoke. I press my t-shirt to my nose and push forward without slowing.

  A brutal hit to my abs. Air rips out of my lungs. I drop back to the center.

  “I’m not letting you leave that easily.”

  His voice slides around me.

  I run again, aiming for the edge of the fog. This time, I focus. He’s going to try the same thing. I just have to be ready. I feel the shift in air before impact. I catch his fist. He was aiming at my abs again. I squeeze. I’m not letting him slip back into the smoke.

  “Huh?”

  The shock rips through my arm. He lifts me like I weigh nothing and throws me aside like a rag. I slam back down in the middle of the fog.

  His voice is unbearable.

  “Not wanting to fight doesn’t mean I’m weak. I’m Sonus rank.”

  Sonus. One step above me. Even physically, he’s above me. The gap isn’t small. Great. This old man is more of a problem than I expected.

  “We can talk while you lose strength. What do you want to know? Don’t underestimate the wisdom of the old.”

  I grit my teeth. They traffic humans. They buy awakened people like merchandise. I have nothing to learn from him. But I need time. To find something.

  “What do you want with that girl?”

  The smoke shifts slightly. His voice answers without hesitation.

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  “Isn’t it obvious? Her Mots, of course. It isn’t awakened yet. But it will awaken.”

  Another puff. I feel my muscles empty a little more. How can these people be so well-informed ? No. Not now. One goal. Kill him.

  Cigue keeps talking.

  “By the way… do you know how a Mots awakens?”

  “No.”

  He laughs.

  “And yet you’ve lived it. It’s simple. You break the person. You give them trauma strong enough to crack what they are.”

  The fog tightens.

  “I wonder what kind of trauma will awaken hers. Poor girl. Either she becomes a slave to the Word Hunters Guild… or she becomes a slave to the government. She gets to pick between plague and cholera. And you, young man… you don’t want to switch sides?”

  I clench my jaw.

  “No thanks.”

  He exhales.

  “You’re really blunt.”

  One knee hits the ground before I even realize it. My breathing speeds up. Not good. At this rate I lose. He won’t stop talking.

  “You probably don’t do well with girls. Or friends. You should work on your personality.”

  His voice gets under my skin. He should mind his own business.

  “If you want advice, let go. Let the river carry you. It doesn’t hurt.”

  The river is already carrying me. I’m not here by choice, but I don’t say it. I can’t show weakness. I answer in a way that keeps him from thinking I’m starting to panic.

  “You’re not afraid your advice will backfire?”

  He chuckles softly.

  “At my age, not much scares me. Win or lose, it’s the same. I have a mission. I complete it or I die. That’s it. Good, evil… adding concepts is just another chain.”

  My fist tightens. I can’t let myself get dragged by someone like him.

  “That mindset is exactly how you ended up like this. You’re not ashamed of your existence?”

  I hear a smile in his reply.

  “I just told you those thoughts are pointless.”

  I start coughing. The smoke burns my throat. Sweat runs down my back. My legs shake. I don’t have much left.

  I have to act anyway. Every attempt to analyze makes me weaker. So I do the opposite. I close my eyes. I stop hunting for a logical solution. I stop anticipating. No future. I don’t think about what could happen, about losing. No past either.

  I’m not letting the current drag me anymore. I make one simple choice. Free myself from this smoke prison and deal with him. That’s all that matters now.

  It’s strange. I don’t feel empty. Something familiar rises, something old, almost forgotten. A shape of nostalgia. Like I’m finding a version of myself that existed before. A simpler state. I’m just here. And in that calm, something inside me finally stops shaking.

  I smile.

  I stare into the smoke around me, searching for the smallest tell. I track every ripple, every shift in thickness. My eyes blink, not from fatigue but to adjust. My entire mind narrows to one objective. See through it. My perception tilts. Edges sharpen, warmth bleeds into the outlines. A light pressure settles on the bridge of my nose. Infrared goggles have appeared.

  My neck tightens and a dry nausea climbs up, like my body refuses this state. I grit my teeth. I can’t wobble now. The smoke stops being a wall. Shapes separate behind it. I catch Cigue’s silhouette. Still. His hand lifts to his face. He’s going to draw from the cigar.

  I extend my arm without hesitation. I remember that day, how easily a man’s life ended in front of me. I line up my gaze. I don’t think. I let my body complete the motion like it has done it a thousand times.

  My finger bends. At the exact moment the movement finishes, a pistol forms in my hand. The shot fires immediately. Sharp. The bullet cuts through the smoke and hits his skull clean. His body sways, then drops hard. The smoke begins to thin, slowly. It has no reason to exist anymore.

  I come back to myself. I’m breathing hard, like I held my breath through the whole process. That state I was in isn’t new. I can feel it. But it’s dangerous. For me. For anyone near me. I look at my hands. I just killed a man without hesitation. Without a hint of regret.

  “He deserved to die.”

  Why does that thought come so easily ? I can’t judge anything with certainty, and yet the idea sits there like a fact. Playing the hero disgusts me, but part of me thinks I did what had to be done.

  My hands don’t shake. And that bothers me. Because it was too easy. Why does that state feel so familiar ? This coldness. This absence of doubt. I don’t understand. But I have to stay careful. I feel like I lost something important, and I don’t know what.

  I lift my head. In the distance, Aris is still fighting Mato. He doesn’t look in trouble. Fortuna, though… something’s off. She looks like she’s being pushed back. Like she hasn’t used her ability. Or did Topi refuse the game. I should go help her.

  They turn. They’ve seen me. Topi and Mato start running toward me.

  “Cigue !”

  I blink. Topi… is crying. So even monsters have people they care about. They can feel grief. They can break. I remember our first meeting. Their smiles. Their contempt. The way they treated me like an object. I’d be lying if I said the scene isn’t a little satisfying.

  Topi and Mato are screaming Cigue’s name. Running isn’t an option. Not against filth like them. Let them come. I’ll deal with them the way I dealt with the old man. I expect nothing else from cowards like them. They attack as a pair.

  I drive my feet into the ground and anchor my body. Come. I’m waiting. I lift my arms, ready to take it. Mato slides to my left, heavy, hammer already high. Topi arcs to my right, aiming for my blind angle. Two gray shields form around my forearms. Flexible, but resistant. I tighten my grip.

  I channel everything into my arms and legs. I won’t move. The hammer drops. At the same time, the spinning kick slams the other side. Two heavy impacts. My bones vibrate. They’re swinging with no technique. Just rage.

  They keep going. My arms start to shake. My shoulders burn. The ground cracks under my feet. They aren’t trying to wound me. They’re trying to crush me.

  Topi screams.

  “Send him flying!”

  The hammer rises from the ground. The kick comes from the opposite angle. I feel the ground vanish. I’m launched into the sky.

  Air turns cold. The alley shrinks. Then I see it all. Miles of scrap metal. Tangled alleys. Morgus spreading without end. My chest tightens. I hang there for a heartbeat, outside of time, at the peak of my arc, right before gravity remembers me.

  It’s beautifully ugly.

  I flap my arms like a chick trying to fly, but I’m dropping too fast. If this keeps up, I’m going to splatter. I extend my arm. I can’t clear my mind. How am I supposed not to picture a parachute right now. But nothing forms.

  I shove the parachute image away. I’m not looking for an object. I’m just trying to soften the fall. The descent doesn’t slow. I’m going to hit. Fine. I brace. Arms over my head. I’m not sure I survive. I’ve never fallen this far. Can I even take it.

  The ground surges up. I pull my arms tight, gather my energy. Then a dull impact. I bounce off a massive cushion that hurls me farther. I hit the ground hard. I’m still alive.

  The street is empty. Three bodies lie on the ground. Mato. Topi. Cigue.

  Aris and Fortuna are standing. They must have used the moment to land a killing blow. After all, they burned a lot of energy launching me into the sky. Well played. I expected nothing less.

  No one speaks. We all know what comes next. We start walking toward Nora. I think about Cigue’s words. I’m going to have to traumatize her.