Blake's POV
The desert didn't care who you were.
It didn't care about ideals, or leaders, or flags.
It only cared how long you could stay standing.
Three days since the train burned.
Two since I'd had real water.
One since I stopped looking over my shoulder for Adam.
The sand stretched forever in every direction, heat bleeding off the dunes like a furnace. My coat was scorched and torn. My throat was raw from smoke. But I was still alive.
That had to count for something.
I reached a highway by dusk — cracked pavement, faded lines, and the ruins of an old checkpoint. The sun was bleeding out behind the ridge, orange fading into ash.
I collapsed under a rusted sign that said Vale 83 miles.
Eighty-three.
My chest tightened. I couldn't walk that. Not like this.
Then I heard it — a faint whine of engines, distant but coming closer. I crawled up the slope and saw the lights of a cargo convoy cresting the ridge. Vale-bound, civilian markings.
My first thought was hide.
My second was no one's coming to save you this time.
So I stepped out.
The trucks slowed when they saw me — a half-burned Faunus girl with white dust streaks and broken goggles. The driver of the lead rig leaned out the window.
"Hey! You alive, kid?"
"Mostly," I croaked.
"Where the hell you come from?"
I hesitated. "Outpost. Attacked."
He squinted. "You White Fang?"
The word hit like a slap.
"I was," I said. "Not anymore."
He stared at me a second too long, then sighed. "Get in the back. Don't touch anything. If anyone asks, I didn't see ears or tails."
"I don't have a tail."
He smirked. "Then that's one less problem."
I climbed into the truck bed and lay between crates of replacement parts. The ride was rough, but it was movement.
I kept my eyes on the stars through the slats.
Each mile felt heavier than the last.
Somewhere between waking and sleep, I thought I heard laughter in the static of my own heartbeat — sharp, warm, familiar.
Senti.
Then nothing.
Vale's outer districts came into view just before dawn. The city rose out of the valley like a fortress made of glass and stone. The convoy stopped at the inspection station. I slipped out before the guards could notice.
The city gates loomed high. People filed through in slow lines — traders, travelers, students, all looking tired and clean at once.
I pulled my hood lower and joined the flow.
No one looked twice.
Not yet.
The city swallowed me whole.
Noise everywhere. Airships overhead. Market calls mixing with traffic. It should've felt alive, but all I could think about was how different this noise was from Menagerie. There, noise meant living. Here, it meant forgetting.
I found a place to stay above a repair shop — an empty loft that smelled like oil and rain. The owner didn't ask questions when I handed over a few spare lien cards from the Fang's stash.
He just said, "Rent's due weekly. Don't make me regret it."
"I won't."
"Name?"
"Blake."
He nodded. "Fine, Blake. Don't bring trouble."
"I already left it behind."
That was a lie. Trouble doesn't stay behind when you're part of what made it.
Days passed.
I learned the city's rhythm.
Woke with the factory bells, slept when the trains stopped.
I worked small courier jobs — messages, deliveries, errands for people who didn't care who I was.
At night, I read the papers.
Every headline said the same thing: White Fang Strikes Again.Atlas Responds to Terror Raids.Civilian Casualties Unconfirmed.
They called it resistance. They called it vengeance.
They never called it what it was — grief wearing a mask.
I folded the paper and shoved it under the floorboards.
One evening, I walked past a crowded alley lit by a broken sign. The words Dust Emporium flickered red.
A voice came from behind me. "You look like someone who knows when to leave a fight."
I turned.
A woman leaned against the wall — tall, broad-shouldered, amber eyes under a hood. A huntsman's build, but her expression was soft, almost bored.
"I'm not looking for one," I said.
"Good. Because most people who do end up on the wrong side of mine."
She glanced at the hidden shape of my ears beneath my hood, then at my posture. "You've been running a long time."
"How can you tell?"
"You don't walk. You check exits."
That made my chest tighten. "Who are you?"
"Someone who's been on both sides of a bad cause."
She turned to leave. "If you want to stay alive in Vale, stop standing where people can see your reflection."
When she disappeared into the crowd, I realized she'd dropped a slip of paper near my feet.
It had only three words.
Beacon. Huntsman Program.
I held onto that scrap for a week.
Then another.
It wasn't courage that made me decide. It was exhaustion.
Maybe if I learned to fight for real — not for a flag, not for guilt — I could learn how to live again.
Before leaving the city, I stopped by the rail yard where the trains passed every dawn.
I don't know why I expected to see her there.
Maybe because every morning since the explosion, I'd woken up hearing her voice — quiet, teasing, stubborn.
"You move first, remember?"
The wind tugged at my cloak.
"I'm moving," I whispered.
For a heartbeat, I swore I saw a flicker of silver-blue hair in the crowd — wolf ears catching the light — then it was gone.
Maybe a trick of the sun.
Maybe not.
Either way, I started walking.