behind her with every stride. June felt no attachment, n

icture of suburban affluence. Manicured

n five hundred dollars - the sum of her secret, part-time jobs, scraped toge

s stop and studi

The familiar shape of the city grid radiating outward from

ew thi

route between school and the Sears house, the grocery store, the clinic. But

lowed. Her p

ancial towers to the east, the grimy, chaotic pocket of the city center known as the Blackwood D

wave of cold water. This world

s under the table. Everything she had learned as Aurora - every contact, every password, eve

d her face. She wasn't star

life, there had been a place in Blackwood - an unofficial, underground antique market. T

led slowly into decaying brick and graffiti-scarred walls. She closed her eyes, her mind sifting through a dual inheritance of knowled

lect. She stepped off the bus and navigated the labyrinth of grimy alleys with a familiarity that defied her seventeen yea

script tattoo parlor, its neon

parked behind a counter, arms crossed over his chest like slabs of meat. His eyes d

simple phrase - a password from another life, one she prayed

by a flicker of genuine surprise. He re-evaluated her, squinting - then

ked through her veins. Som

ness, and the muffled sounds of a hidden world - haggling

under dim, hanging bulbs, their tables piled with a chaotic assortment of goods. Rusted tools. Broke

ed into the wrong part of town. She began to move through the aisles, her eyes scanning the tables with the precis

instincts that had kept Aurora alive t

lored black suit watched the market floor on a bank of monitors. The screens

ands clasped behind his back. "Mr. Bryant, the m

ention had snagged on a figure mov

n unnervingly calm for someone her age navigating a den of thieves and predators. She didn't gla

at on the armrest of his chair - a habit that s

gaze to the screen. He s

ll piled high with miscellaneous junk - rusted tools, broken pottery, forgotten s

dom - the idle curiosity of a browser. But Jase had spent twenty years reading people thr

rward, voice dropping to a low m

inked.

variables on

h he couldn't imagine what threat a skinny teenage

round something small and metal. She pulled it fr

ion it was almost unrecognizable - j

e unique texture beneath the oxidation. Her heart gave a single, hard

t smile played on

o deal with the stall owner. Her mind was already calcu

e had just stepped into the sights

e bloom on her face. A flicker of deep curiosity stirred in his dar