They didn't speak until they were three neighborhoods away.
The city resumed its usual noise around them—engines, voices, the distant rattle of a train—but Ethan felt as though he were moving through it behind glass. The encounter replayed in fragments he couldn't quite assemble. He knew he had done something decisive. He just couldn't remember the edges.
That frightened him more than the creature had.
Maya finally stopped beneath an elevated rail line where the steel beams cut the sky into rectangles. She turned and studied him, her expression sharp and searching.
"You're bleeding," she said.
Ethan looked down. A thin line of blood ran from his nose to his upper lip. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.
"Is that normal?" he asked.
"For you?" Maya said. "It's becoming normal."
She leaned against one of the pillars, folding her arms. The glow of her armor was gone, but the weight of it still seemed to hang around her, like heat after a fire.
"You did something big back there," she continued. "You didn't just push it away. You disrupted its anchor."
Ethan frowned. "I don't remember."
"I know." Her voice softened. "That's why we need to talk about what comes next."
He shifted the bag higher on his shoulder. "I don't get to walk away, do I?"
Maya didn't answer immediately. A train thundered overhead, drowning out the city for a moment.
When the noise faded, she said, "You could try."
Ethan let out a short, humorless laugh. "And let things like that keep hunting people who don't even know what they're stepping in?"
She watched him carefully. "You're already answering your own question."
Ethan stared down the street, at people passing under umbrellas, at a couple arguing quietly near a bus stop, at a kid bouncing a ball against a wall like the world wasn't fragile.
"I didn't ask for this," he said. "But neither did they."
Maya nodded. "That's the trap. Power finds people who feel responsible."
He turned to her. "And what about you?"
She met his gaze without flinching. "I chose a long time ago. I just didn't know how long it would last."
Ethan felt the hollow in his chest again—not sharper, not deeper, just there. A reminder.
"What happens if I keep using it?" he asked.
Maya's eyes flicked to the bag. "You'll get better. Faster. More precise."
"And emptier," he said.
"Yes," she agreed. "Unless you're careful."
He thought of the rules. Thought of the woman he'd saved. Thought of the collector's voice, cold and inevitable.
"What if I don't run," he said slowly. "What if I learn the limits—really learn them—and only use it when there's no other option?"
Maya studied him for a long moment.
"That's the line most people draw," she said. "Few hold it."
Ethan exhaled. "I don't need to be a hero."
She almost smiled at that.
"Good," she said. "Heroes burn out. What the world needs is someone stubborn enough to keep showing up."
The bag warmed faintly, as if approving the sentiment—or simply listening.
A distant siren wailed, then cut off abruptly.
Maya straightened. "We can't stay in the city," she said. "Too many eyes. Too many sensors—human and otherwise."
"Where do we go?"
She glanced north. "Somewhere quiet. Somewhere the signal gets muddy."
Ethan hesitated, then nodded. "Okay."
They started walking again, slower this time. Purposeful.
As they moved, Ethan felt something settle inside him—not certainty, not confidence, but resolve. The shape of a choice forming around the absence the bag had carved.
He didn't know how much of himself he could afford to lose.
But he knew one thing with uncomfortable clarity:
If the universe was going to keep asking for payment, he would decide what it was paid for.
Behind them, unseen, the place where the collector had fallen stitched itself back into the city's skin.
Far away—farther than angels, deeper than procurement engines—something old and patient adjusted its attention.
The game had gained a piece that could not be easily replaced.
And Ethan, carrying a bag that answered imagination, walked on—toward consequences he would choose, one miracle at a time.