Chapter 4
House of Safety
"Do I tell him?"
I asked myself that question time and again.
Time and again, I came to the same answer.
"He already knows.
Not in the here,
Not in the
now
.
But somewhere deep.. he is carrying it.
When he finally stops running, it'll find him and I'll be there."
The door hissed open on poorly maintained hydraulics, a low groan echoing down the stairwell behind them. Inside, the safehouse was dark--darker than it should've been. Power was still intermittent. Emergency backups only. Red auxiliary strips hummed low across the ceiling, casting the room in an emergency glow, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
He stepped inside first, his boots dragging slightly across the threshold. Sable's presence hovered close--no projection, just threads of voice and interface overlay as she oriented to the room.
"No visual nodes," she noted. "Good. No uplinks either. Power rerouted to shielded internal grid."
He didn't answer. Just stood in the center of the room, breathing. For the first time in... gods knew how long... he wasn't running. Wasn't bleeding. Wasn't breaking apart. Not yet. Not now.
The silence hit harder than it should have.
Not silence exactly... the absence of pursuit. The kind of quiet that rang in the ears. He blinked slowly, letting his senses catch up with his body.
Sable said nothing. That was comfort.
He dropped his jacket, then the gear, muscle memory reslung the rifle muzzle-down. Every movement unhooked another layer of urgency. His legs faltered, toe catching fabric. He nearly tripped.
A small object slipped from the jacket's inside pocket, unseen. It landed between folds like a seed.
His knees buckled when he sat--not from injury. From release.
Sable's voice came soft. "Vitals stabilizing. Neural load still high. You should rest."
"I know," he murmured. "Just... give me a minute to remember I'm allowed to."
The room wasn't much. Concrete. Steel. Reinforced shuttering. A Faraday cage. And yet--
"I know this place," he said, scanning. "We stayed here once."
"Before Cairo," she confirmed.
A phantom ache curled under his ribs.
"There's a med kit behind the access panel," she added. "Vent by the sink. I left it there in case you ever made it back."
He exhaled, slow. "It's impressive you can do that."
"Do what?"
"Leave breadcrumbs."
"Not breadcrumbs," she said softly. "Breadcrumbs wash away. These were etched."
The wall shimmered--markings flickering into view. Not real. Not physical. A projection keyed to his neural feed.
He reached out anyway. Grazed the air.
"I embedded them," she whispered. "For you."
He stayed seated, elbows on knees, letting the moment land. Then rose.
He crossed to the far wall. Found the pressure latch. The panel clicked open. Dust and time inside--but beneath it, the med kit remained. Sealed. Military-grade. His hands hesitated, then lifted it out.
"Left side first," she said. "Tissue near the aug port. It's inflamed."
