The night draped itself over New Knight City like a shroud, thick and suffocating. Hours ago, the square had been a canvas of color and celebration—banners rippling against the breeze, music lacing the air, strangers laughing together as if the fractures of their world had been miraculously healed. Now, silence held dominion, broken only by the brittle flutter of torn streamers clinging to lampposts.
The lingering scent of smoke and street food mingled with the acrid tang of ozone from the city's battered power grid. Shadows pooled in alleyways, stretching across cracked pavement like ink spilled from an unsteady hand. In the distance, the skeletal outline of skyscrapers loomed against a starless sky, their glass teeth catching faint glimmers of light from scattered fires still smoldering in the outer districts.
Evelyn Carter stood at the top of the Town Hall's marble steps, her hands buried deep in the pockets of her worn coat. Her shoulders ached, her feet felt leaden, and the exhilaration of the afternoon's unity had drained from her like water leaking from a cracked vessel. The crowd had dispersed hours earlier, but the hum of their voices still lingered in her ears.
Her gaze swept over the empty square. It wasn't absence that unsettled her—it was the ghost of something left behind. She might have called it foreboding, except it wasn't quite fear. It was the quiet certainty that the fragile thing they had built today would be tested before the night was done.
That certainty deepened when her fingers brushed against something in her coat pocket. She frowned, pulling it free. A small, neatly folded note. No name. No seal. No trace of how it had gotten there. The handwriting inside was slanted, deliberate, and almost painfully elegant.
Six words.
He hasn't told you the truth.
The words seemed to hum with a life of their own, each letter carrying a weight disproportionate to its size. Evelyn read them again. And again. The note felt heavier than paper should, as though it had been dipped in secrets and left to dry.
She knew exactly who he was.
Marcus Hale.
The industrialist whose fortune had been built on the bones of their city. The man who, earlier today, had stood at that very podium and promised change—promised renewal—promised something that almost sounded like redemption.
Almost.
A sharp gust of wind lifted the hem of her coat and carried with it the faint sound of footsteps approaching.
"Evelyn," Rico's voice cut through the quiet, softer than usual, the buoyancy gone from it. She turned to see him climbing the steps two at a time, his dark hair whipped by the wind, his eyes glinting—not with mischief this time, but with a wary alertness.
"You're still here," he said, reaching her side. "I thought you'd gone home hours ago."
"I was… thinking." She slipped the note back into her pocket, deciding not to mention it. Not yet. "What's going on?"
Rico glanced around the empty square before lowering his voice. "You heard?"
"Heard what?"
"There was a fire. Sector 12."
Her stomach tightened. "When?"
"An hour ago. It's already contained, but…" He hesitated, his jaw tightening. "They're saying it wasn't an accident."
Sector 12 was one of the poorest districts in the city, a dense network of crumbling tenements and makeshift markets. It was also where the resistance had dug in deepest during the last wave of corporate crackdowns. A place that had refused to bend, even under the weight of martial law.
Evelyn's pulse quickened. "Do they know who—?"
"No one's talking," Rico said. "But I don't think it's random. Not after today."
The note in her pocket felt suddenly warmer, almost as if it could burn through the fabric. He hasn't told you the truth.
Her mind conjured possibilities, each darker than the last.
They started down the steps together, their footsteps echoing in the empty square. The streetlights flickered above them, casting fractured light that left more darkness than illumination. As they reached the far side of the square, Evelyn caught movement in her peripheral vision—something shifting against the rooftop skyline.
She stopped. Squinted. There it was again: a shadow gliding along the building's edge, too steady to be the wind, too deliberate to be coincidence.
Rico noticed her stillness. "What is it?"
"Someone's watching," she murmured.
The shadow paused, as if sensing her gaze, then melted back into the darkness. The hairs on her arms lifted. In a city this fractured, watchers could be anyone—corporate security, underground resistance operatives, mercenaries for hire. Friend or foe didn't matter tonight. What mattered was that someone had been tracking them long enough to know where to stand for a clear view.
They moved on, heading toward the southern blocks. The streets here were quieter, narrower, their cobblestones slick from an earlier rain. Neon signs buzzed faintly from the few shops still open—bars, pawnshops, and unlicensed medics. Somewhere behind a boarded-up café, a generator thumped steadily, the only sound breaking the oppressive stillness.
By the time they reached a low wall overlooking Sector 12, the smell hit them first—charred wood, melted plastic, and the sour tang of smoke clinging to damp air. Down below, the district was a patchwork of darkened streets and glowing embers. People moved like shadows among the ruins, some carrying buckets of water, others clutching what few belongings they could salvage.
Evelyn leaned against the wall, her chest tight. She'd been here before, months ago, delivering supplies to a community that corporate officials had written off as a lost cause. Now it looked like the photographs she'd seen of old war zones—blackened walls jutting out like broken teeth, the ground scattered with debris that had once been homes.
"This wasn't just a fire," she said quietly. "It's a message."
Rico shot her a sideways look. "To who?"
"To everyone." Her voice hardened. "And I think I know who wrote it."
She didn't mean the flames. She meant the note in her pocket, its six words still clawing at the edges of her thoughts.
Somewhere behind them, a door creaked open. Evelyn turned to see an older woman step into the street, her face lined but her posture unbowed. She carried a battered satchel and wore the bright scarf of the Sector 12 community council.
"You shouldn't be here," the woman said, her voice low but steady. "It's not safe tonight."
"We heard about the fire," Evelyn said. "We came to—"
"You came to look," the woman interrupted, eyes narrowing. "Look, and then what? Go back to your safe district? Make speeches?"
Evelyn swallowed her reply.
The woman's expression softened, if only slightly. "If you want to help, come back tomorrow. We'll need hands. And we'll need people who aren't afraid to speak the truth—no matter who it burns."
The scarf caught in the wind, a flash of color against the soot-dark street, and then she was gone.
Evelyn stood in the silence that followed, the weight of her unasked questions pressing down on her. She thought of Marcus Hale—his carefully measured words, the gleam in his eyes when he'd spoken of change, the easy way the crowd had leaned forward to listen.
And she thought of the fire, licking through the heart of Sector 12 like a living thing, devouring whatever fragile trust might have begun to grow.
The note in her pocket felt heavier than ever.