Avenridge – Two Days Before Arrival

  The door clicked shut behind Sheriff Dane Solvar, though he didn't bother to lock it. No one stole in Avenridge—there wasn't anything worth taking, and if there was, the town would know who did it before the dust even settled. Everyone who lived here knew everyone else, and in the seven years since the incident, petty crime had all but vanished. Apparently, fear did that to a pce.

  He stepped into the morning light. The dry wind caught the edge of his coat, tugging it back like a reminder that the desert never slept. Dust skittered across the walkways—thin, sun-bleached paths that wound between squat buildings stacked like forgotten cargo crates. Each one had color, once—painted murals, vibrant fabrics fluttering from balconies—but time and sand had dulled everything into muted browns and sunburnt reds.

  Avenridge had suffered due to the water poisoning, the deaths, and people leaving to get away from the poison. It caused the city to suffer, but it has been slowly repairing in the past seven years. Not by much, but enough. Enough for the scrap yard to become a repair bay, for new water tanks to rise beside the failing wind farms, for kids to run barefoot between food stalls cobbled together from starship panels and wooden structures, alongside and on top of the original adobe stone buildings. The older signs had faded, and newer ones were carved by hand. There were more awnings than there used to be, more shade rigged from parachute silk and salvage tarps. The market still opened early, though the wares were thinner now—more repcement parts than produce. The air held the faint tang of chemicals from the treated water supply. SVC had made the water drinkable again, sort of. It tasted like metal and cleaning fluid, but it didn't kill people anymore. Crops grew with effort, stunted and stubborn, clinging to life the way everyone else did.

  They brought Dane in after—recruited out of a half-defunct combat unit, technically. He'd had other options. A few off-world posts, a quieter gig pnetside. But he couldn't leave his men. The war had taken enough from them all. When he saw the posting for Avenridge, a settlement promising peace and new beginnings, he seized the opportunity. The posting mentioned that he was welcome to bring others with him, family and friends. So he applied, sending a list of requirements—housing, positions for the handful of soldiers he'd vouch for—and got a reply in under an hour. The kind of fast response that hinted at desperation on the other end.

  Maybe they needed warm bodies to fill the settlement. Maybe they just wanted to appease a bureaucrat. Either way, Dane didn't care about their motives. He gathered his men, the ones who had survived the final onsught, and they made the journey to Avenridge together. A fresh start, away from the bloodshed and chaos. Or so they'd hoped.

  Upon arriving, the men left over from his unit branched out to other small vilges that surrounded the moon. Most going to work on the terraforming rigs or mining rigs, eager to lose themselves in the physical bor after years of carnage. It was just far enough away from the remnants of civilization that they felt like they could finally breathe without the stench of smoke and charred flesh clogging their lungs. Only two stayed with Dane in Avenridge: Dr. Elian and Gavin, the ones who had seen the worst of it all alongside him.

  Dane would never have the words to tell those two how grateful he was that they chose to stay with him; he was grateful that they even decided to follow him, much less stay in the same town as him. Taking jobs that they were overqualified for and building lives in what was retive boredom. Both men could have gone anywhere. Instead, they'd chosen this dusty outpost of a town, with its faltering water systems and fading hopes. Elian, who could have been a chief medical officer somewhere that actually had proper equipment, and Gavin, whose combat skills would have earned him triple the pay as private security. Yet here they remained, orbiting Dane like they were tethered to his gravity, sharing quiet evenings and the weight of memories no one else could understand.

  He passed a pair of old men pying a game on a makeshift table—pstic bottlecaps and old credits arranged in complex patterns. One looked up and tipped his chin. "Sheriff." Dane managed a curt nod, not breaking stride. The townspeople had learned to accept his sparse greetings as currency enough.

  "Morning, Sheriff!" called Mrs. Renfield from above, working on her struggling vegetable garden. When he met her cheerful gaze, she gave him a wave with a dirt-covered glove. Dane returned the gesture with a tight smile, the motion feeling foreign on his weathered face.

  Further down, a kid ran past, chasing a patchwork drone cobbled from spare parts. "'Scuse me, Sheriff!" One of the Kade twin's voice was bright with youthful energy, a stark contrast to the weariness weighing on Dane's shoulders.

  He grunted, kept walking. He was tired—but he was always tired these days. Maybe just as tired as the rest of the town, worn down by the relentless struggle to survive on this unforgiving moon. The fatigue seeped into his bones, a constant companion he could never quite shake.

  The sheriff's office sat squat and wide in the center of town. Across the way, the clinic's lights glowed warm behind dusty gss. Dane paused for just a second—long enough to catch the silhouette in the window.

  Elian. Dr. Elian Rho. His heart, and his heartache. The man's gentle presence was a beacon in the darkness, one that Dane both craved and felt unworthy of. He didn't deserve the man. Not on his best days. And today wasn't one of them.

  Through the window, he could see Elian's profile, bent over something on his desk—probably patient charts or inventory lists. The doctor's hair fell forward as he worked, completely absorbed in whatever held his attention.

  Something in Dane's chest tightened. He allowed himself three seconds—no more—to watch before forcing himself to continue walking. The st thing he needed was to stand in the middle of the square looking like a lovesick idiot. They'd been on and off for nearly two decades. Constant tug-of-war. But he still counted the quiet moments when no one was watching.

  He pushed open the door to his office. The familiar scent of sand, metal, and coffee hit him like a memory. He tossed his hat onto the desk. Rubbed his eyes.

  Always tired.

  The office was tight. Just enough space for a main desk and a battered couch that sagged in the middle. Two narrow holding cells sat at the back, bars warped slightly from age and heat. His deputy Gavin's desk sat near the front, strategically pced as a first line of defense against talkative townsfolk and compining meemaws who wanted someone to yell at before breakfast.

  Gavin was one of the men Dane brought with him to this moon. One who was eager to come, despite the uncertain future. He had been gravely wounded in that st battle, losing a leg while saving both Dane and Elian from an explosive bst. The medics repced the mangled limb with a cybernetic prosthetic—Gavin's second, he had willingly given up an arm for the promise that he would be a better soldier. But with time, and the quieter pace of this small town, he adjusted well enough to the new hardware. The gruff deputy moved with a subtle hitch now, but his eyes missed nothing. Dane was gd to have him watching his back, even in this seeming peace.

  Gavin's desk was empty. Out on patrol again, probably. Most likely wrangling the Kade twins—who knew what they were trying to destroy today.

  His own office was just behind Gavin's desk. Just big enough for a desk made of scrap and stubborn bolts, a chair that groaned louder than his knees in the morning, and a shelf with a coffeepot older than most of the town's kids. It worked.

  He slid into the chair and slumped with the kind of weariness that didn't go away with sleep.

  The hum of the old terminal was the only sound in the room. The water reports on his screen blurred into meaningless numbers, half-read and ignored. The numbers rarely changed. The water was drinkable, sure, but it tasted like recycled battery acid. The popution wasn't rising, but it wasn't shrinking either. That was thanks more to Elian than anyone else.

  Elian kept people alive. Too smart for this pce, too good for it. But he stayed for Dane. For reasons Dane had never earned.

  In the quiet, the terminal pinged—loud, abrupt.

  An alert.

  He straightened and leaned forward, tapping the screen. His chair creaked in protest. The old polymer joints groaned as he shifted his weight, leaning closer to study the bright words fshing across the monitor.

  A message appeared, bright red across the top:

  "Notice of Release: M. Virelli. Sentence served in full. Transport shuttle arrival confirmed. Local w enforcement notified as per standard reentry protocol."

  Dane stared, his brow furrowing as he read the words again. And again. A muscle ticked in his jaw as the reality sank in—she was coming back. After all this time.

  A long, low breath hissed through his teeth. He could feel the anger simmering, that familiar burn of rage flickering to life in his chest. "She's really coming back..."

  The one responsible for the state Avenridge found itself in now felt she was in the clear to return, just because she'd served her time. And legally, she could. She had every right. But the town was still paying for her crimes, still reeling from the devastation she had wrought all those years ago.

  He didn't know what he felt. Not exactly. A tangled knot of emotions twisted in his gut—bitterness, disbelief, a flicker of something that felt dangerously close to relief. But fury was easier than the rest of it. Fury, he could handle. Rage was a fire he knew how to stoke, how to wield.

  Dane's hands clenched into fists atop the battered desk as he gred at the innocuous words. She was coming back. And he had no idea what that would mean for Avenridge.

  For a woman he'd never met, Dane had seen plenty of the destruction she left in her wake. The cemetery had tripled in size, rows upon rows of fresh graves carved into the hard-packed earth.

  She'd been young—nineteen—and to this day, no one really knew why she'd taken to bombing the dam. The old sheriff, Bren Lorne, had tried to defend her. Wrote on her behalf during the trial. Cimed it was grief, shing out after watching her parents struggle with illness. But grief didn't justify reckless. And at the end of the day, to Dane, it was domestic terrorism.

  Maybe the bomb had gotten away from her. Maybe she didn't mean to kill anyone. But two boys with promising futures were buried in that cemetery now, their lives snuffed out. And over a hundred more lived with the consequences—sick, dispced, or just gone, their names etched into the memorial wall.

  Avenridge had been decimated. And even seven years ter, the town was still trying to recover, the scars of that fateful day etched deep into its very bones. Because of her, SVC had shuttered their rge regional offices, once a hub of activity and employment. What had once been hundreds of jobs for a small town had vanished overnight.

  Now, those buildings sat empty. An ugly scar on the cliffside, shadowing a barely repaired dam.

  So she could come back. Legally, sure. But there was no pce for her here, not after the trail of destruction she'd left in her wake. And Dane would make damn sure she saw that, one way or another. He would not allow her to inflict any more pain on a town that had already suffered far too much.

  The Day Before

  Far from town, the royal ship descended like a ghost, cloaked and silent. It eased into a deep canyon not far from the broken remains of Mia's childhood home. The nding was smooth. Controlled. Final.

  Mia stood beside it, hair tied back, a pack slung over one shoulder. Her clothes were pin—travel-worn, dusty, unremarkable. Her boots crunched against dry earth as she walked away, not looking back. A hint of determination flickered across her features, a steely resolve hardening her gaze as she left the ship behind.

  A part of her stayed with the ship. The part that carried power. Legacy. Fury. But the part walking into town? That was Mia Virelli. Ex-convict. Engineer. Ghost. A woman forged in the fires of injustice, tempered by hardship, and now returning to confront the demons of her past.

  Asrell was quiet in her head today, as he had been for days. She didn't have the words to cheer him up—not that he wanted them. She'd grown used to his sullen withdrawals, the way he retreated into himself when memories became too sharp. An unspoken understanding lingered between them, a bond forged through shared trauma and an unbreakable will to survive.

  She avoided flying over her old home on approach. She circled wide and kept her eyes locked ahead. The ache would come ter, but for now, she could only afford so many hits to the heart. A pragmatic mask concealed the turmoil within, the memories threatening to resurface and shatter her fragile composure.

  But she did see the water.

  How could she not?

  The upper reservoir still stood, a looming reminder of what once sustained them. But the lower basin—the one meant to catch the overflow—was bone dry. The main body of water was thick and dull, a gray-green sludge with a chemical sheen. The dam itself bore the scars of patchwork engineering—charred supports, mismatched panels. The bridge across it had been rebuilt, but it leaned slightly, like it hadn't forgotten what happened there. A silent testament to the town's descent into decay and neglect.

  And the river that wound through the canyon, once clear and blue, now ran brown with silt. A murky scar carved through the nd, a stark contrast to the vibrant memories etched into Mia's mind.

  The town below looked the same. But smaller. Diminished, like a shadow of its former self.

  Seven years ago, Avenridge had been bright. Painted murals on every block, homes stacked high in adobe-style yers, cheerful chaos clinging to the sides of the canyon. Fgs and fabrics danced on lines strung between rooftops, catching light and ughter. A stark contrast to the muted, faded hues that greeted Mia's return, as if the very life had been drained from the pce she once called home.

  Now the colors were washed out. Muted. Ground down by the sand and ravages of time. Entire buildings were boarded up—windows covered in scrap metal or salvaged pnks, doors sealed shut with wire and rusted bolts. She didn't know if they were empty husks or if the people inside simply didn't want to let the light in anymore, preferring to cower in darkness.

  The windstorms had worsened over the years, their fury leaving visible scars. She could see it in the scoured paint, peeling in long strips from the walls, the snted walkways bent by the unrelenting gales, the drift lines where sand had piled up against homes that once stood proud, now humbled. Since the explosion that shattered her life, the nd had hardened. Cracked under the merciless sun. The desert didn't sleep anymore, restless and angry. And neither did the people who struggled to survive within its unforgiving embrace.

  For now though, she had a long walk to make through those battered streets. A shuttle to catch that would complete her return. One st bit of performance—to show she was a good little convict who had served her time and returned home with her head down, marked and forgotten by the world she'd known.

  The backpack on her back was heavy with the weight of her meager belongings, but she only carried what was absolutely necessary. A few changes of clothes. Water, precious and finite. Nutrient bars to stave off hunger. A sleep roll, just in case the ruins of her family home were worse than the haunting visions that pgued her memories.

  And because she didn't know if the sheriff would search her bag upon arrival. He had the power to viote what little privacy she had left. And she didn't want to give him a single reason to be suspicious of the woman he'd already judged and condemned once before.

  The Day Before

  Far from town, the royal ship descended like a ghost, cloaked and silent. It eased into a deep canyon not far from the broken remains of Mia's childhood home. The nding was smooth. Controlled. Final.

  Mia stood beside it, hair tied back, a pack slung over one shoulder. Her clothes were pin—travel-worn, dusty, unremarkable. Her boots crunched against dry earth as she walked away, not looking back. A hint of determination flickered across her features, a steely resolve hardening her gaze as she left the ship behind.

  A part of her stayed with the ship. The part that carried power. Legacy. Fury. But the part walking into town? That was Mia Virelli. Ex-convict. Engineer. Ghost. A woman forged in the fires of injustice, tempered by hardship, and now returning to confront the demons of her past.

  Asrell was quiet in her head today, as he had been for days. She didn't have the words to cheer him up—not that he wanted them. She'd grown used to his sullen withdrawals, the way he retreated into himself when memories became too sharp. An unspoken understanding lingered between them, a bond forged through shared trauma and an unbreakable will to survive.

  She avoided flying over her old home on approach. She circled wide and kept her eyes locked ahead. The ache would come ter, but for now, she could only afford so many hits to the heart. A pragmatic mask concealed the turmoil within, the memories threatening to resurface and shatter her fragile composure.

  But she did see the water.

  How could she not?

  The upper reservoir still stood, a looming reminder of what once sustained them. But the lower basin—the one meant to catch the overflow—was bone dry. The main body of water was thick and dull, a gray-green sludge with a chemical sheen. The dam itself bore the scars of patchwork engineering—charred supports, mismatched panels. The bridge across it had been rebuilt, but it leaned slightly, like it hadn't forgotten what happened there. A silent testament to the town's descent into decay and neglect.

  And the river that wound through the canyon, once clear and blue, now ran brown with silt. A murky scar carved through the nd, a stark contrast to the vibrant memories etched into Mia's mind.

  The town below looked the same. But smaller. Diminished, like a shadow of its former self.

  Seven years ago, Avenridge had been bright. Painted murals on every block, homes stacked high in adobe-style yers, cheerful chaos clinging to the sides of the canyon. Fgs and fabrics danced on lines strung between rooftops, catching light and ughter. A stark contrast to the muted, faded hues that greeted Mia's return, as if the very life had been drained from the pce she once called home.

  Now the colors were washed out. Muted. Ground down by the sand and ravages of time. Entire buildings were boarded up—windows covered in scrap metal or salvaged pnks, doors sealed shut with wire and rusted bolts. She didn't know if they were empty husks or if the people inside simply didn't want to let the light in anymore, preferring to cower in darkness.

  The windstorms had worsened over the years, their fury leaving visible scars. She could see it in the scoured paint, peeling in long strips from the walls, the snted walkways bent by the unrelenting gales, the drift lines where sand had piled up against homes that once stood proud, now humbled. Since the explosion that shattered her life, the nd had hardened. Cracked under the merciless sun. The desert didn't sleep anymore, restless and angry. And neither did the people who struggled to survive within its unforgiving embrace.

  For now though, she had a long walk to make through those battered streets. A shuttle to catch that would complete her return. One st bit of performance—to show she was a good little convict who had served her time and returned home with her head down, marked and forgotten by the world she'd known.

  The backpack on her back was heavy with the weight of her meager belongings, but she only carried what was absolutely necessary. A few changes of clothes. Water, precious and finite. Nutrient bars to stave off hunger. A sleep roll, just in case the ruins of her family home were worse than the haunting visions that pgued her memories.

  And because she didn't know if the sheriff would search her bag upon arrival. He had the power to viote what little privacy she had left. And she didn't want to give him a single reason to be suspicious of the woman he'd already judged and condemned once before.

  The Morning of Arrival

  The afternoon sun hit Avenridge like a warning—bright, dry, and sharp. Dust swirled across the worn docking ptform. Sheriff Dane Solvar stood with arms crossed, jaw set, boots pnted like he was expecting a fight.

  The shuttle was due to arrive any minute, and if the passenger manifest was to be believed, M. Virelli was on it. He'd never met the girl, but he had her picture from when she was younger, along with the one from her intake. He noticed there was no image for her release, but that wasn't unusual—just zy oversight.

  He was a man known for his patience, but right now, waiting at the arrival bay just outside of town, he felt the weight of it all.

  He knew he should've warned the town. But he'd hoped she was only coming for a few days—just long enough to see there was nothing left for her, and then leave again. Quiet. Quick. No disruption.

  Sheriff Dane Solvar was a broad, heavyset Terran, a walking reminder of his Gen7 enhancements. Military-issue muscle, the kind that lingered long after the war ended. A bck tattoo curled up the side of his neck—an old unit symbol, and a quiet warning that he was stronger than he should be. His shoulders were a wall of bulk under his coat, his presence impossible to ignore.

  Deputy Gavin Jace stood beside him, sipping from a battered mug. Alien-humanoid, built like a boulder, his cybernetic right arm glinted where it caught the sun between the scuffed paint. The bumps on his skin, visible under his rolled-up sleeve, marked the interface lines of deeper enhancements. One leg was cybernetic too, though hidden. His tattoo sat just below his colrbone, a designation that marked him as both soldier and survivor. Scarier on sight than Dane, maybe—but only until he opened his mouth.

  Gavin cast a side gnce. "Did Elian answer you st night?"

  Dane's jaw clenched.

  Gavin gave a low whistle. "Ah. Still angry, huh."

  Dane didn't respond. Just stared out across the dust.

  "So," Gavin said, shifting topics, "what's the pn with our returning ghost?"

  Dane's mouth tightened. "I'm hoping once she sees what's left of her family home, she'll get the message. There's nothing here for her anymore."

  Gavin nodded slowly. "You know the town's not gonna welcome her. People are still pissed."

  "Yeah, well," Dane muttered, "she served her time."

  Gavin raised an eyebrow. "That's what I'm saying. You don't gotta like her, but she's legally free. Reformed, even."

  Dane let out a slow exhale through his nose. "As long as she's not carrying a bomb to finish what she started, she can py at redemption all she wants."

  That earned him a gre from Gavin. "You know I have to believe in the system, Dane. Otherwise, what the hell are we even doing out here?"

  Dane didn't answer. He just rubbed the back of his neck and squinted at the rising heat shimmer.

  Gavin blew into his mug. "Everything's breaking again. Did you notice?"

  "Notice what?"

  "Shuttle bay lights are half-shot. The pneumatic door on the east side sticks like a bastard. The cooling unit in the tavern is doing that whine again. Even the Doc's auto-seal on the back exit is clicking. The market's sanitation filter is throwing sparks. The north side perimeter tower is shakier than a drunk cyb on a shuttle wing mid-air. "

  Dane turned to stare at him. "Fix it."

  Gavin held up his hands. "Fix it? Dane, I don't know a bolt from a breaker chip. The st guy who did was Old Jero, and he died st year. The other two engineers retired. One moved off the moon. We got no one."

  Dane growled, dragging a hand down his face. "Then find someone."

  Gavin grumbled. "Sure. I'll just yank the answer out of your ass. Since it's so damn tight, it must be holding all the solutions."

  Dane gave him a sidelong gre, but it was the kind he only gave when he wasn't really mad.

  The town lights flickered above them, a soft hum overhead. Supposed to be automated—light sensors built into the posts to power on at dusk and off at sunrise. But most stayed dark. Burned out. Or too broken to care.

  They could hear the shuttle before they saw it—the grind of a dying propulsion system echoing across the canyon. Then, through the dust, the shape emerged. The shuttle kicked up a long wake of sand as it descended, its aging frame shaking from the effort. It wasn't built for long trips—never left the moon—but it still managed to drag itself across the desert.

  The nding wasn't graceful. It hit the pad with a rattle and a thump, steam hissing out the sides as the engines groaned into silence.

  The windows were too dusty to see through. But as the doors slid open, Dane made eye contact with the driver—a grizzled tank of a man, ex-military, more machine than patience. This was probably a nap run for him.

  Then, through the heat shimmer and swirling dust, a figure stepped forward.

  Mia.

  Slimmer, paler, hair shorter, eyes darker, than her intake photo. The harsh desert sun unforgiving in showing the new lines in her face, carving out the hollows of her cheeks. But there was a strength in the set of her jaw, a quiet resilience. Any other time, he would have found it attractive, as he appreciated strength.

  She moved without hesitation. Steady. Straight toward them. Each step carried the weight of purpose.

  She looked the same from her intake picture, but not. The girl they'd known was still there, but hardened, tempered by an experience that had stripped away her softness and left only the essentials.

  She looked healthy. But worn. Like something had chewed her up and spit her back out—and she was still standing. A survivor, battered but unbroken, her eyes holding a depth that spoke of secrets and unseen battles.

  Terrorists should look like that, he told himself. But even as the thought crossed his mind, it rang hollow. There was no malice in her gaze, only a steely determination that made his gut twist with unease.

  Dane's expression didn't change, a mask of indifference concealing the turmoil brewing beneath the surface. He had seen too much, felt too much, to let his emotions show so easily.

  Gavin stepped forward, tone steady but firm, his cybernetic arm glinting in the sunlight. "Mia Virelli? I'm Deputy Gavin Jace. This is Sheriff Dane Solvar. Welcome back to Avenridge." His words carried a hint of warmth, but that was just Gavin. Could shatter a skull with the strength in his hands, but he was all warmth and kindness to the dies.

  Mia gave a single nod, her gaze unwavering, refusing to be cowed by their official stances. There was a strength in her silence, a quiet defiance that spoke volumes.

  Dane studied her for a long beat, his eyes narrowing slightly as he took in every detail, every shift in her demeanor. Then, finally spoke, his voice low and cold, a warning shot across the bow. "So, Virelli. What's your pn here?"

  Her voice was even. Measured. A stark contrast to the storm that raged behind her eyes, a tempest that only Asrell could fully comprehend. "I want to go home. That's it." The words were simple, but they carried a weight that belied their brevity, a promise.

  Dane could just feel Gavin start to weaken—he was a sucker for sad cases, lost pets, and broken things. His friend's compassion was both a strength and a weakness, one that Dane had learned to navigate with a deft hand. He gave Gavin a curt nod. "Head back to the office. Hold the post."

  Gavin hesitated—just enough for Dane to see it, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes as he wrestled with his instincts. But in the end, loyalty won out. He gave Mia a small, apologetic tilt of his head and the ghost of a smile, a silent acknowledgment of the bond he and Dane shared, forged in the fires of war. Then, with a final gnce at Dane, he turned and made his way back to the shuttle, leaving the two of them to face each other in the swirling dust and heat.

  She didn't return it. Her face stayed still. Masked. Unyielding as the desert around them, giving nothing away. Dane searched her eyes for a flicker of emotion, any hint of the girl he thought he knew, but there was only an unfamiliar hardness there now.

  Once Gavin was gone, Dane turned and motioned for her to follow with a curt nod of his head. He wanted this done, whatever "this" was. No more deys, no more questions. It was time to face the truth.

  With a wave, he led her to the truck—a beat-up thing cobbled together from rust and future-tech. The body looked like it belonged on a farm a hundred years ago, patched with wire and hope, but the engine hummed with an unseen power source. It rumbled to life with a cough, dark exhaust billowing up in a cloud.

  She hesitated for a fraction of a second, her boots scuffing the cracked earth. Her immediate thought: she didn't know this man, not really. What if he wanted to murder her away from any eyes and bury her under the sand? Paranoia stirred, a reflex born of too many betrayals.

  Asrell stirred in her mind, his voice a whisper of disdain. "This is your home?"

  "Not everyone grows up in paces," she thought back, sneering inwardly at the symbiote's arrogance. This dustbowl was all she had ever known.

  She made her decision quickly, climbing into the passenger side before Dane could notice her pause. He didn't, his focus already turned toward the road ahead. The truck lurched forward, swallowing them in a haze of red dust.

  The ride was silent. Not uncomfortable, not yet. Just silent. The quiet stretched between them like a canyon as Dane guided the truck through the ruined streets.

  He took the long way. Purposefully. Let her see the dried-out fields, the ruined irrigation lines, the cracked earth where once-green crops had grown. Let her feel it. All of it. The weight of loss and neglect pressing down.

  The Marzini ranch slid past her window—once proud and bustling, now empty and silent. Their big, cheerful sign hung askew on a single rusted chain, swinging in the sandy wind like it had been left behind by everyone else. It swayed with a rhythm that sounded like loneliness, taunting her with memories of ughter and life before everything withered away.

  And then, cresting the ridge, he brought the truck to a slow stop.

  Below them stood the burnt-out skeleton of her home, a haunting reminder of what had been lost.

  It was charred timbers and crumbled walls. From the front, she could see the carved canyons through what had once been their home, a ndscape she knew like the back of her hand. There was barely anything left. The river rock foundation stood like bones, scorched bck with soot. Wind swept dirt and sand through the hollow space.

  Her mother's kitchen—gone. The rge kitchen she'd insisted on, where the warmth of shared meals had once clung to the walls like memory, now reduced to rubble. And her father's workshop—just ash now. Ash and silence. A deafening quiet that echoed with the ghosts of ughter and the cnging of tools.

  She stepped out of the truck, the groan of the door jarring against the stillness. Her boots crunched into grit, the only sound in the eerie calm. But she made no sound, her throat constricted with emotion.

  Inside, she was screaming, a torrent of anguish and disbelief threatening to consume her.

  Asrell scrambled to absorb the wave of pain, confusion cing his thoughts as he felt the echoes of her turmoil. He had no frame of reference for what this ruin meant—but he could feel the echo of something precious, lost, a wound that cut deep into her very soul.

  On the outside, she didn't even blink, her face a mask of stoic indifference, belying the maelstrom raging within.

  Dane walked around the truck, his footsteps heavy on the ground. Tossed her bag to the ground beside her, the thud reverberating through the silence.

  "Four years ago," he said, his voice cutting through the stillness, "two of the townsfolk lost their parents to poisoned water. In grief and in anger, they came here. They torched the pce and watched it burn, Virelli. And right or wrong, the town didn't even try to put it out. Water was too scarce."

  He watched her closely, searching for a reaction, any flicker of emotion.

  She gave him nothing, her gaze unwavering, her expression unreadable.

  "You've got no home. No job. No family. No roof. The nd's poisoned. What exactly do you pn to do here?"

  She didn't look at him, her eyes fixed on the desote ruins that had once been her sanctuary.

  Didn't blink, didn't flinch, didn't betray the turmoil within.

  Then slowly, she turned, her eyes level, her voice steady, a calm belying the storm raging inside.

  "I want nothing. From anyone."

  He jabbed a finger toward her, his expression hardening. "Good. Because we can't afford for you to be a burden. Don't be a burden."

  He turned, climbed back into the truck, and smmed the door shut, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the silence.

  If he'd waited just three more seconds, he would've seen the flicker of hurt fsh across her face, a brief crack in her armor before the mask slipped back into pce.

  Instead, he drove away, leaving her alone with the ghosts of her past. She stayed, unmoving, and watched the sun set over the ruins of her childhood, painting the desotion in hues of gold and crimson, a bittersweet farewell to the life she had known. As the st rays of daylight faded, Mia felt a familiar weight settle in her chest, a heaviness born of memories long buried.

  Asrell came alive the second the dust of the truck faded from view, his ethereal form coalescing around Mia's body like a living cloak. This, he sneered, his voice a whisper in her mind, repeating his question again, "Is your home?" She didn't answer, her gaze fixed upon the crumbling remains of the farmhouse, taking in every crack and crevice as if committing them to memory.

  "Wood and stone," he continued, grumbling, "building a house out of twigs and prayers. How did you survive childhood in something so... flimsy?" A faint smile tugged at the corners of Mia's lips, a ghost of a happier time. She snorted softly under her breath and finally moved, boots crunching on the parched earth as she circled the skeleton of her childhood home, tracing the outline of what was once a life.

  He wasn't done. "Your energy is low. Your reserves are depleted. The sun is setting. You stink." Asrell's words were meant to provoke, to distract her from the mencholy that threatened to consume her.

  "You don't even know that," she muttered, more to herself than him, her voice barely audible over the whisper of the evening breeze.

  "I'm assuming. It's a fair guess." What she wouldn't know, and Asrell would never admit to, was that he was poking at her to distract her from that wave of anger and hurt he felt from her. It had been unfair what that wman had said to her, and he could sense the turmoil brewing beneath her stoic exterior.

  She shook her head, loose strands of hair falling across her face. "We'll be fine. I was waiting to make sure the sheriff was really gone." The words caught in her throat as a sudden wave of grief washed over her, threatening to drown her in a sea of memories she had fought so hard to suppress.

  That shut him up for half a beat, his usual snarky retorts momentarily forgotten as he felt the weight of her sorrow. In that moment, they were united in their shared experience of loss, two souls adrift in a world that had taken so much from them.

  Her family's property stretched between tall canyon walls—less dramatic than the great ridges further north, but high enough to hide in. Behind the ruined house sat the empty reservoir, once a manmade ke that had watered the crops and orchards. Now it was a cracked bowl of dirt and memory, the st rays of sunset glinting off shards of broken gss and twisted metal.

  She moved east, toward the rocky outcrop her mother had always favored, each step heavier than the st. Crouching, she brushed away sand and grit with her hands until the shape of a seam in the stone emerged, the faint outline of a door slowly taking form.

  A hidden door, seamlessly built into the canyon wall.

  Her mother's storm shelter, workshop, but really it had been her mother's bunker. When Mia showed an aptitude and interest in tinkering with gadgets, her mother gifted her this bunker her parents had dug out of the canyon walls. And what had been her mother's bunker became her haven.

  Palm to the nearly invisible reader, the doors whispered open with a soft hiss of stale air.

  Stepping inside, she was met with dust and memories.

  The lights blinked on as she stepped inside, casting a warm glow over a room frozen in time. Tools scattered across the workbench, journals untouched on the shelves. There was a rge bed, still made, a thin yer of dust coating the bnket. The air smelled faintly of oil and metal, a scent achingly familiar.

  She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, suddenly overwhelmed. Her eyes burned as she blinked back tears.

  Asrell's voice returned, quiet this time. "This will do."

  And for the first time that day, a sad smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she looked around at the remnants of a life cut short.

  "Yeah," she whispered, her voice thick. "This will do."