Blake's POV
Vale was nothing like Menagerie. The air was colder, cleaner, but it didn't feel honest. The city looked alive at night—lights over steel bridges, carriages that hovered instead of rolled, people pretending the world didn't burn just outside the walls.
To everyone else, Vale was progress. To the White Fang, it was a wound that never closed.
We stayed in the industrial ring near the rail line. Adam Taurus ran this cell, and even I could tell he wasn't like the others. The first time I saw him, he didn't look at people—he measured them.
"You're Ghira Belladonna's daughter," he said, voice calm, precise. "Then you already understand patience."
I nodded. "I understand what it costs."
He smiled. "Good. We're done paying."
Senti was behind me, red eyes steady under her hood. Her silver-pale hair caught the warehouse light in streaks, and the wolf ears atop her head twitched at every echo. The others watched her, unsure if she was a weapon or a warning.
Adam didn't ask her name. He just said, "You'll follow my orders. Both of you."
Senti's tail flicked once. "We'll follow reason."
He smiled again, smaller this time. "Reason is decided by those willing to act."
The missions grew harsher fast.
At first, it was still cargo—Dust, medicine, salvaged parts. Then it was sabotage. Burned records. Collapsed roads. Things meant to send messages.
Every time we returned, Senti looked quieter. She didn't sleep much, and when she did, her ears twitched at every creak.
One night, I woke to see her sitting cross-legged against the wall, eyes glowing faint red in the dark. Her canines caught the faint light when she spoke.
"Can't sleep?" I asked.
"Too loud," she murmured.
"There's no one here."
"That's the problem. It's me."
She tapped the side of her head. "It keeps splitting. One voice wants to laugh. Another wants to run. Another just wants everything to stop moving."
"Which one's talking now?"
She gave a half-smile. "The one that still knows which one is me."
I didn't sleep after that either.
A week later, Adam announced a coordinated strike on an Atlas Dust train. It was different from anything we'd done before—public, loud, and meant to cripple supply routes.
"We hit it at the mountain pass," he said. "No civilians, no guards, no casualties—unless they get in the way."
"That last part sounds like permission," I said.
"It's reality," Adam replied.
Senti leaned on a railing, listening. "You want fear more than freedom."
He looked at her then, and for the first time, his smile vanished. "Fear creates freedom."
She didn't blink. "Fear kills faster."
They stared at each other long enough for the others to look away.
When the meeting ended, I pulled Senti aside. "Don't pick fights with him."
"He's already planning one," she said. "And we'll be the ones cleaning it."
The raid came at dusk, two days later.
The plan was simple: detach the last three train cars, load the crates onto trucks, leave before reinforcements arrived. But simple plans die fast.
The convoy reached the tunnel entrance when an early patrol came from the opposite side—two sentry drones and a guard skiff. The air filled with shouting before the first flare went off.
"Abort!" Adam barked.
The flare meant the opposite—attack.
Smoke swallowed the tunnel mouth. I saw Senti dart through it, twin blades cutting the grappling lines before they locked. She moved like lightning, tail sweeping for balance, red eyes burning under the dim light.
Someone fired.
Not us. Not Atlas. One of our own. A wild shot that hit a crate and set the Dust inside alight.
The blast threw me off my feet. I hit the rail, ears ringing.
Through the haze, Senti stood between the fire and the nearest guard, one blade buried in the dirt, the other held defensively. The guard hesitated, blinking at the red glow around her.
Then she spoke, her voice layered—hers and something else beneath it.
"Leave."
The word wasn't loud, but it rippled through the air. The guard staggered back, dropped his rifle, and ran. The others followed, panic spreading like sparks.
Senti turned toward me. Her eyes were still glowing.
"Senti!"
She blinked once, twice. The glow dimmed. "You're bleeding."
"I'm fine," I said, though I wasn't.
Adam approached, blade drawn. "We could've taken them. You scared them off too early."
Senti's tail lashed once. "You mean before you got to watch them die?"
His hand tightened on the hilt. "Careful."
"I am," she said. "That's why you're still talking."
He took a step forward. I stepped between them. "Stop it. Both of you."
The fire behind us popped. The smell of burnt Dust and metal filled the tunnel.
Senti looked at me, voice low. "We're not winning anything this way."
Adam turned. "Then stay out of my way when I do."
We left before dawn. The train never made it to Vale, but neither did we. The reports said the White Fang caused "an explosion in the mountains." No mention of names. No mention of the girl with red eyes who told the guards to run.
By noon, Adam split the team. He kept the loyal ones—those who cheered for destruction and called it justice. I stayed because leaving then would've been suicide. Senti stayed because she wouldn't leave me.
That night, we hid in an abandoned weigh station. I watched her clean the blood off her blade in silence.
"Why do you keep doing it?" I asked.
She paused. "Because someone has to stop this from turning into something worse."
"It already has."
She looked at me then, and for the first time since Mantle, I saw her look afraid. Not of death—of herself.
"It's getting harder to tell where I end and they begin," she said quietly.
"Who?"
"The voices. The ones that sound like me but aren't."
I reached for her hand. "Then I'll remind you."
Her fingers tightened around mine—strong, shaking, human.
"Promise," she said.
"I promise."
Outside, the desert wind howled through broken glass. The White Fang flag above the next outpost fluttered in the dark.
I didn't know it then, but that night was the last time either of us believed we were still fighting for the same thing.