Blake's POV
We left Menagerie fast. No goodbye letter. No second talk with Mom. I told myself I'd send something later. I didn't.
The first cell they placed us with worked out of a dry dock on the Vacuo border. The town was sunburned and stubborn. People bartered more than they bought. The White Fang outpost was a box of a building with two rooms, a map on the wall, and a crate of spare masks under a table.
They put me on errands at first—messages, schedules, supply lists. Senti took perimeter walks, saying she liked to "see the ground before it moves." At night, the outpost rotated watch. She never needed to be woken. She was up before the rest of us, blades clean, hair tied back, eyes clear.
A week in, we got a "redistribution" job. A small Atlas shipping depot on the edge of town. According to the handler, the plan was simple: get in, open the wrong gate on purpose, roll out food and tools, leave a note about "fair shares."
"Fast," he said. "No showboating. In and out."
He said it to the room, but he was looking at Senti when he said showboating. She didn't answer. She didn't blink either.
We moved at dusk. Five of us. Two to cut the fence, two to push carts, one to keep eyes on the watchtowers. They gave me a mask. I didn't put it on.
Senti watched the guard shifts, low and steady. "They're bored," she said. "That's good. Bored people follow habits."
I nodded. "How long do we have before the next sweep?"
"Six minutes," she said. "Maybe five if someone gets curious."
We went in on her count.
The fence cut clean. The depot lights were old and half-broken. I found the gate controls while the others rolled out two pallets of rations and a box of tools with serial numbers shaved off. Everything felt too easy. I told myself that was because we'd planned well.
A guard stepped out from a corner door, yawning.
He saw us.
He reached for his radio.
Senti was already there. She didn't pull a blade. She set her hand on the radio and said, calm and even, "Don't."
He froze. Not in fear. Like the moment didn't land right.
"Leave," she said.
He blinked, confused. "I… will get my supervisor."
Senti's jaw tightened. "No. You're going to turn back inside, close the door, and forget you saw anything except a loose latch on the gate."
He stood there another half-second. Then he nodded, slow, like someone waking up, and did exactly what she told him to do.
I exhaled and pulled the carts forward.
"Don't use that on everyone," I said.
"I won't," she said. "But it's better than blood."
We would have been gone in another minute.
Then two men stepped out from behind the trailers—white masks, different cut, not from our cell. One shoved a cart back toward the depot and kicked the wheel hard enough to break it.
"Make noise," he said. "That's the point."
"That is not the point," I said. "We're here for food. We leave a statement, not a crater."
He grinned behind the mask. "Words don't change anything."
Senti moved between him and the gate. Not aggressive. Not soft.
"Take what we came for," she said, "and go."
He reached into his jacket.
"Don't," I said.
He pulled a Dust charge the size of his palm and thumbed the cap. "We'll make sure they remember us."
I stepped forward. "You'll make sure they get permission to shoot next time."
He pushed past me. Senti caught his wrist. He twisted. She let him, pivoted, and tapped the inside of his elbow. The charge fell. She kicked it under the pallet and put her boot on it.
The second outsider raised a flare.
"No," Senti said.
He launched it anyway.
The flare hissed and punched a bright line into the sky. The depot guard we'd turned away wasn't the only one on shift. A siren stuttered to life somewhere behind the trailers.
Senti didn't look at the flare. She looked at me.
"Get the others out," she said. "Right now."
"What about you?"
"I'll shut the gate," she said.
"I can—"
"Blake. Go."
I pulled the first two carts with the stevedore kid from town. The pulleys squealed. The siren got louder. Boots hit metal ladders beyond the warehouse wall.
When I looked back, Senti had one blade drawn—not for show. For work. She cut the wheel that had jammed, shoved the lame cart forward, and then went for the gate controls as two guards rounded the corner with batons and stun rifles.
She didn't attack first. She stepped into them, took the first baton on her forearm, trapped it, and pushed the guard into his partner. Both stumbled. She brushed the toggle, the gate rolled, and she backed through while keeping them tangled.
The first swing came low. She blocked with the flat. The second came high. She ducked under it and popped the latch on the rifle battery with her blade hilt. The weapon died. The guard swore. She used that breath to turn and run.
We were already out past the fence. The two masked outsiders weren't. One slipped trying to jump the cut panels. Senti grabbed the back of his jacket and hauled him through hard enough to leave skin on the wire.
"Don't thank me," she said.
He didn't. He tried to shove her. She let him, then stepped aside so he went face-first into dust.
We ditched the pallets three blocks away with a clinic that kept its light off at night. The kid from town knocked twice, quick. The door opened, arms pulled the crates in, and that was that. No speeches. No applause.
Back at the outpost, I sat on the floor and took my boots off. My hands were shaking. I forced them still and failed.
Senti stood in the doorway, forearm bruised, breath steady.
"You did the right thing," I said.
She didn't nod. She didn't shrug. "We didn't kill anyone."
"That's not the only measure."
"It's the first one," she said.
I looked up at her. "What did you do to that guard?"
"Nothing permanent," she said.
"That's not an answer."
She leaned on the doorframe. "I told his body to wait a second. He listened."
The room went quiet.
I tried to speak and found I couldn't. She watched me, calm, but I could see the cost in the set of her jaw.
"Does it hurt when you do that?" I asked.
"Sometimes," she said.
"And tonight?"
"Not yet."
I reached for the med kit. "Sit."
"I'm fine."
"Sit anyway."
She did. I wrapped her arm. The bruise was ugly. She didn't flinch.
When I finished, she looked at my hands. "They're still shaking."
"I know."
"Breathe," she said.
"I am."
"Again."
I did.
The handler came in with a face like he wanted to be angry and didn't know who at. He pointed at the two masked outsiders, who were now pretending to be helpful by stacking empty crates.
"You two don't run with my crew again," he said. "You light a flare near a depot with an Atlas tag and you get people dead."
They left without arguing. Good. I didn't want to see what Senti would do if they didn't.
We were told to lie low for a few days. The town felt tighter. People stared at the sky where the flare had been, as if the light had left a stain.
That night, I found Senti outside the outpost, sitting on an overturned bucket, blades across her knees. She wasn't cleaning them. She was staring at the metal like she expected it to speak first.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"I'm listening."
"To what?"
She tapped her temple. "The part that wants to laugh."
I froze.
"I didn't," she said. "I won't. But it's there."
"What part?"
She rubbed the heel of her hand against her brow, like smoothing a wrinkle that wouldn't go. "The loud one. The one that liked being faster than everyone. And another part that keeps saying to count exits. And another that just wants to pull us both out of this and never look back."
She closed her eyes.
"Names?" I asked.
"No," she said. "Not yet. If I name them, they get stronger."
I sat beside her. The night air tasted like dust and the sweet fruit the clinic had passed to us in payment.
"I left home because I wanted to help," I said. "Not to watch us turn into targets."
"You left home because you won't look away," she said. "That's different."
"Do you think I made a mistake?"
She thought about it.
"No," she said. "I think you made a promise. Now you have to keep it without becoming someone else."
"And you?"
"I keep you alive long enough to do that."
"That's not your job."
"It's mine until you tell me to stop."
I didn't tell her to stop.
Two nights later, we took another job—messages this time, simple drop-and-walk. It went clean. I slept for a few hours without waking.
On the third night, I woke to raised voices in the hall. The handler. A courier from Mistral. A name spoken like a threat and a solution at once.
Adam Taurus.
I stood in the doorway and listened. Senti stood behind me, silent.
"New coordination," the courier said. "He wants strong cells in Vale. Trains. Shipments. Clear objectives."
"Clear how?" the handler asked.
The courier didn't answer that.
When he left, Senti spoke first.
"Stay away from him," she said.
"You don't even know him," I said.
"I know the wake he leaves."
I wanted to argue. I didn't. The floor felt unsteady under my feet, like a platform with a bolt halfway out.
The next morning, I wrote a letter to Mom. I didn't send it. I wrote another one to Dad and tore it up before the ink dried. We packed to move, orders stamped with a red symbol I didn't recognize. Vale-bound.
Senti folded her jacket tight and slid her blades into a worn wrap. She looked at me and waited to see if I'd say stop. I didn't.
On the way out of town, the stevedore kid from the clinic waved. He held up a paper bag of bread and dried fruit.
"Take it," Senti said.
"I will," I said, and did.
We passed the fence line where the metal still showed a clean cut. No one had fixed it yet. It made a straight path into the sand.
"Next city?" I asked.
"Next city," she said.
We walked.