She waited until the next evening to say it.
We were in the same back room. Seth was sleeping in the next room, stable now. Elira was wiping her hands on a cloth when she spoke.
“I saw the way you moved when you brought him in,” she said quietly. “Same way my father used to move when he thought no one was watching. And your coat… I’ve seen that cut before. In his old things.”
She looked at me then. Not angry at first. Just tired.
“You said you were helping people stand up to the Syndicate. You didn’t say you were part of something that has them this scared. You didn’t say you were one of them.”
I didn’t lie. Not this time.
“I was trying to keep you out of it.”
She laughed once, short and bitter.
“Too late for that, don’t you think?”
She didn’t throw me out. She didn’t even raise her voice. But the space between us felt different after that. Like something had finally cracked open.
