CHAPTER 4: THE GIRL WHO LEAVES
Lysenne stitched Kael's shoulder without anesthetic.
Not because she was cruel.
Because she didn't have any.
Kael sat on a cot in the back room, jaw clenched, hands gripping the edge of the mattress as the needle bit through skin.
Riven hovered near the door, restless, like he didn't trust walls.
Lysenne's fingers were steady. "You're bleeding like you picked a fight with the earth and lost."
Kael managed a breath. "It started it."
Lysenne didn't laugh. She tied off the stitch and wiped the blood with a cloth already stained from a dozen other people's survival.
She leaned back, eyes flicking to Kael's palm. The cut he'd used on the seal still hadn't closed fully.
"This is weird," she said. "Not the wound. The way it's… refusing to behave."
Kael didn't answer. He didn't have words for Apex Core. He didn't have words for the feeling of being rewritten.
Lysenne pressed a bandage to his hand anyway.
Her touch was warm.
Kael's chest tightened in an old familiar way, equal parts relief and dread.
Because Lysenne was the kind of kindness that came with an expiration date.
She'd cared for him before. Fed him. Patched him up. Let him sleep behind the shop when winter made the streets meaner.
And then she'd left.
Not permanently.
Just enough times to teach him that attachment was a knife with the blade turned inward.
Riven watched them with narrow eyes. "We can't stay long."
Lysenne glanced at him. "Who are you?"
"Someone who doesn't want him dead," Riven said.
Lysenne's gaze returned to Kael. "That's a crowded club."
Kael sat up slowly, wincing. "Vaelor is hunting me."
Lysenne went still.
Even the air in the room seemed to tighten.
She set her tools down carefully. "Why?"
Kael's laugh was quiet, bitter. "Because I didn't die in a ruin like I was supposed to."
Lysenne closed her eyes for a moment, as if that sentence physically hurt.
Then she opened them and looked straight at him.
"You need to leave the city."
Kael held her gaze. "I'm tired of leaving."
Lysenne's voice sharpened. "Kael, this isn't pride. This is survival."
Kael's interface flickered again.
WARNING: EMOTIONAL STRESS ELEVATED.TRAUMA RESPONSE: APPROACHING THRESHOLD.
He hated the way the system watched him like an experiment.
He hated the way it was right.
"I can't keep running," Kael said, quietly. "If I run forever, I'll still be Unworthy. Just… Unworthy somewhere else."
Lysenne's eyes glittered. "You think power fixes what they did to you?"
Kael didn't answer fast enough.
That was answer enough.
Lysenne exhaled, long and tired. She reached into a drawer and pulled out a small pouch of coins and a folded paper.
She shoved them into his hand.
"What's this?" Kael asked.
"A way out," Lysenne said. "A smuggler route. Names. Places to sleep. People who won't ask questions."
Kael stared at the paper like it might bite.
"You're helping me leave," he said.
"I'm helping you live," Lysenne corrected. "Those are not the same."
Riven stepped forward. "He's not leaving."
Lysenne's eyes flashed. "You don't get to decide that for him."
Riven's jaw tightened. "And you do? You left him before."
Silence dropped into the room like a stone.
Kael felt his throat tighten. He didn't want this fight. He didn't want the truth of it.
Lysenne's face changed, a flicker of guilt too quick to hide.
"I left because staying meant dying," she said. "And no one was going to die for you, Kael. Not then. Not now."
Kael's hands trembled. He didn't know what part of him was angry. The boy. The runner. The thing becoming something else.
"I didn't ask you to die," Kael said.
"No," Lysenne replied, voice cracking. "You just keep showing up like you're the one exception to consequence."
Kael flinched.
Lysenne took a breath, steadied herself, and then reached out. Her fingers brushed his cheek, gentle and familiar.
For a heartbeat, Kael leaned into it.
Then Lysenne pulled away first, as always.
"I can't be part of this," she whispered.
Kael's stomach sank. "You're leaving."
Lysenne's eyes stayed on his, and there was something honest in them, something that made the hurt sharper because it wasn't cruel.
"I'm not built to love a war," she said. "And that's what you're becoming."
Kael swallowed. "I'm still me."
Lysenne shook her head slowly. "Not if you survive what's coming."
A bell chimed in the front of the shop.
Riven's head snapped up.
Footsteps.
Heavy. Organized.
Kael's interface lit up.
THREAT DETECTED: CLAN ENFORCERS (MEDIUM).VAELOR CREED: PROXIMITY INCREASING.
Lysenne's face went pale.
Kael stood, ignoring the pain.
Riven's hands ignited.
Lysenne grabbed Kael's wrist. "Go. Now."
Kael held her gaze, desperate and furious. "Come with us."
Lysenne's lips parted like she wanted to say yes.
Then she looked away.
That was her answer.
Kael nodded once, sharp.
He hated her for it.
He loved her for it.
Those feelings braided together until he couldn't tell which one was the rope and which one was the noose.
They slipped out the back as the front door slammed open.
Lysenne didn't follow.
She stayed behind the counter like a woman choosing to stand in the path of a storm.
Kael didn't look back.
If he looked back, he might stop.
And if he stopped, he would die.