Juliet sat in her apartment, wrapped in a faded hoodie, her hair still slightly damp from the emergency healing rinse she'd used on her temples. Her wristband lay cracked on the table—burned through, the circuits fried from whatever the hell Frank's system had blasted through it.
The apartment was quiet.
Too quiet.
No system pings. No market flashes. No sarcastic banter over who got the better weapon drop.
Just her and the silence.
And the scar behind her left ear that hadn't been there two days ago.
She ran her fingers along it absently.
"I touched something I wasn't meant to," she muttered. "Something he didn't even warn me about."
On the couch across from her, a hunter report played faintly on the holo-screen.
> "…the Association has issued a system patch for misaligned rank recognition glitches, but denies rumors of any foreign tech interference…"
She muted it.
"Lies," she whispered. "They don't even know what he's using."
