Sable's hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Not from fear. From *memory*—138 deaths compressed into meat that could only hold one lifetime. His left hand ached from a knife that had never touched it. His right shoulder burned from claws that had been erased. His skull throbbed where it had cracked against brick in a loop he couldn't remember the number of anymore.
He pressed his palm against wet concrete. Focused on the texture. The cold. The *now*.
*This is real. Ellaya is alive. Second is alive. You're alive.*
*For now.*
Ellaya's hand trembled in his. Small fingers. Cold. She hadn't spoken since they'd left the bodies behind. Just walked. Stared at nothing. Processed things a seven-year-old shouldn't have to process.
Sable looked down at her. Blonde hair plastered to her skull. Grey dress soaked through, torn at the hem. Brown eyes that had seen three men die and were still trying to make sense of it.
*She's in shock. Mild. Functional. But shock.*
*Need to keep her moving. Keep her warm. Keep her—*
The world lurched.
Sable blinked. They were two blocks further than he remembered. Different street. Different bodies.
*When did we move?*
*Did I black out?*
*Which timeline is this?*
Second landed on his shoulder with enough force to hurt. Pecked his ear. Hard.
Sable jerked back to awareness. "Stop—"
The bird pecked him again. Then chirped. Loud. Insistent. *Focus.*
"I'm fine."
Second's chirp came out distinctly skeptical.
"I'm *fine*," Sable repeated. But his voice cracked on the second word and they both knew he was lying.
The bird launched forward. Flew twenty meters ahead. Stopped. Looked back. Waited.
*He's leading.*
*How long has he been leading?*
Sable followed. Pulled Ellaya with him. His mind cataloged the streets automatically—collapsed buildings, Dropling feeding zones, Torrent-born scratch marks on walls. But the analysis felt distant. Like he was reading a report instead of living through it.
Second called back. Two short chirps. *Safe. Keep moving.*
They walked.
-----
Sable's knees hit the pavement before he realized he'd stopped.
Ellaya made a small sound. Worried.
He looked up at her. At the way she watched him—not with fear anymore, but with something worse. *Recognition*. Like she was seeing herself in him. Someone barely holding together. Someone pretending everything was fine when nothing was fine.
"I'm okay," he said.
She didn't believe him.
He didn't believe him.
But he stood anyway. Because staying down meant dying, and he'd already done that 138 times. Didn't need to make it 139.
"Listen." His voice came out flat. Clinical. The tone he'd used in medical school when discussing terminal diagnoses. "We need to talk about your Grace."
Ellaya's shoulders hunched. "I don't want to—"
"I know. But we're doing it anyway." He knelt. Phantom pain shot through his kneecaps—loop seventy-three, Reeve had stomped them until they shattered—and he ignored it. "If someone asks what your Grace is, say this."
"I can hear plants talking. Now you say it."
She looked at her hands. "I can hear plants talking."
"Again."
"I can hear plants talking."
"Until you believe it. Until it comes out automatic. Until you don't even think about the real answer." He reached up. Wiped blood off her cheek. The gesture was mechanical. Practical. Like cleaning a tool.
Her eyes widened slightly. First praise she'd gotten from him.
"Keep doing that," Sable continued. "Keep lying. Keep being useless. That's how you survive down here."
"But I'm not useless. I can—"
"Doesn't matter what you can do. Matters what people *think* you can do." He stood. Offered his hand. "Useful things get used. You understand?"
She nodded. Small. Uncertain.
"Say it one more time."
"I can hear plants talking."
"Good." He squeezed her hand. Just slightly. The grip was steadier than it should have been considering how badly his hands were shaking. "Stay close. Don't talk unless I tell you to. We're going to find shelter."
"Where?"
"Don't know yet."
Second chirped. Urgent. Different pattern.
Sable looked up.
The bird was circling a collapsed storefront. Not panicked. Not warning. Just… *indicating*.
*Found something.*
Sable followed. Around the corner. Into a wider street.
And stopped.
-----
Forty people.
Maybe more. Moving in a tight group. Armed with pipes, broken glass, improvised weapons that screamed *desperate* but *organized*. They walked with purpose. Like they knew where they were going.
At the front: a man.
Forties. Broad-shouldered. Maintenance jumpsuit stained with things Sable's medical training could identify as blood, oil, and Torrent-born ichor. He walked like someone who'd built things and broken things and understood the difference.
Sable's gaze dropped to hands. Checking. Always checking.
Thick fingers. Callused. One hand near a knife on his belt. Not drawing. Just *ready*.
His brown eye tracked the group's formation. His blue eye calculated threat levels.
*Survivors. Not fighters. But organized. Led. That's rare.*
*Which means the leader is competent.*
*Which means dangerous.*
Second landed on his shoulder. Chirped once. Questioning.
Sable's mind ran the math:
*We need shelter. They have shelter. Or know where it is.*
*Ellaya is exhausted. I'm compromised. Second can't scout forever.*
*Risk: approaching strangers. Unknown variables.*
*Benefit: survival.*
*Math says approach.*
He stepped out of the alley. Hands visible. Non-threatening posture. Ellaya beside him.
-----
The leader's head turned.
Slowly. Deliberately.
Looked directly at Sable.
And something in his face *changed*.
Not anger. Not suspicion.
*Fear.*
His shoulders squared. Defensive. His hand moved to the knife—didn't draw it, just touched the handle. Grounding gesture. The kind you made when you needed to remind yourself you had options.
His jaw tightened.
His eyes went wide for a split second. Then narrowed. Muttered something to the group. Forcing calm.
But his hand was shaking.
Sable noticed. Blue eye cataloged every microexpression. Brown eye understood what they meant.
*He sees something.*
*Something about me.*
*Something that scares him.*
The group noticed and heard their leader's reaction. One by one, they turned. Saw Sable. And the ones near the front started backing away.
Not running. But *ready* to run.
Someone whispered: "Oh fuck."
Another voice: "Nash—"
The leader—Nash—raised one hand. *Quiet.*
The group stopped. But the tension was physical. Forty people on the edge of scattering.
Sable tilted his head. Studied them. Studied Nash.
*He's terrified.*
*But he's holding position.*
*Which means he's brave. Or stupid. Or both.*
Sable took a step forward.
The entire group flinched.
He stopped. Kept his hands visible. Non-threatening.
"We need shelter," Sable said. His voice came out flat. Empty. "The kid can't stay out here. Torrent-borns are hunting. If you're heading somewhere safe—"
"No."
The word landed like a door slamming shut.
Sable blinked. "No?"
"You're not coming anywhere near my people."
Nash's voice was steady. Controlled. But there was something underneath. Something that sounded like barely suppressed panic.
Sable tilted his head the other way. Slower this time.
"Why?"
Nash didn't answer.
Sable looked at the group. At the way they watched him. At the three people actively backing away. At the man on the left whose hand was trembling so badly he'd dropped his makeshift weapon.
*They're not just scared.*
*They're terrified.*
*Of me specifically.*
*Which means they see something I don't.*
His analytical mind caught up.
*Grace. Has to be. Someone in the group has a Grace that shows… what? Threat level? Power? Something.*
*And whatever they're seeing makes them think I'm more dangerous than the Torrent-borns.*
He could use that.
*Should* use that.
*People like me always use that.*
The thought tasted like copper.
But he was tired. So tired. And Ellaya needed shelter. And Second couldn't keep scouting forever.
So he'd use it.
Because that's what people like him did.
Sable looked at Nash. Met his eyes. Held them.
"You can see it," he said. Not a question.
Nash's jaw tightened. Didn't answer.
"Whatever it is," Sable continued, voice staying flat and clinical, "you see something that makes you look at me like I'm a threat. Like I'm something that needs to be put down before it becomes a problem."
He took one step forward.
Nash's hand closed around the knife handle. Didn't draw. Just held.
Sable stopped. Raised his hands slightly. Non-threatening. But his eyes never left Nash's.
"You're smart," Sable said. "Keeping distance. Keeping your people positioned to scatter. "
Another step.
"Stop moving," Nash said.
Sable stopped.
Silence stretched. Heavy. Dangerous.
Then Sable spoke. His voice dropped lower. Went cold. Empty. The voice of someone who'd died 138 times and stopped caring somewhere around loop seventy.
"You're terrified. Your people are ready to run. That's smart. Shows you've got working survival instincts."
He tilted his head.
"But here's what you need to understand."
Pause. Let it sit.
"If I wanted you dead, you'd already be dead."
The group went silent. Even the wind seemed to stop.
Sable continued, voice staying flat:
"I wouldn't have walked up to you in the open. Wouldn't have brought a seven-year-old. Wouldn't have announced myself. I would have just started. And by the time you realized what was happening, it would be over."
Someone in the group made a sound. Fear escaping despite attempts to hold it.
Sable didn't look away from Nash.
"But you're still standing. All of you. Still breathing. Still holding weapons you haven't used."
He let that sink in.
"So whatever you're seeing—whatever makes you think I'm dangerous—ask yourself why I haven't acted on it."
Nash's eyes narrowed. "Because you're smart. Smart enough to know killing forty people draws attention. Smart enough to play nice until you get what you want."
"Maybe," Sable said. "Or maybe I'm just trying to keep a kid alive and get her somewhere warm. Maybe whatever you're seeing doesn't matter if I'm not using it."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"I don't expect anything." Sable's voice stayed empty. "I'm just telling you what I need. Shelter. Food. Rest. That's it. Simple. Boring. Not worth forty people dying over."
Nash studied him. Long. Silent.
The tension stretched like a wire about to snap.
Then Nash spoke. His voice came out quiet. Final. The sound of a judge reading a sentence.
"What are you planning to do here, Sinner?"
*Sinner.*
The word hung in the air.
*He can see karma. Has to be. Some kind of Grace that shows karma values.*
*Which means he knows.*
*Knows about the 10,000.*
*Knows I'm Bestowed.*
*Knows I'm exactly what he thinks I am.*
Sable looked at him. At the fear barely hidden behind professional calm. At the knife in his hand. At the forty people ready to scatter.
His mind calculated options. Outcomes. Probabilities.
*Threat won't work. They'll run. Can't catch forty people.*
*Begging won't work. Shows weakness. Weakness invites violence.*
*Truth won't work. Truth is "I killed 138 times to save her." That's not reassuring.*
*So… bluff.*
*Make the threat implicit.*
*Make them choose cooperation over uncertainty.*
Sable's voice came out flat. Clinical. But there was something underneath now. Something cold and absolute.
"You're asking the wrong question."
Nash: "What?"
"You're asking what I'm planning. You should be asking what I've *done*."
The group tensed.
Sable continued:
"I'm going to walk away now.
"I'm going to walk away now." The words came out flat. Empty.
Not his voice—the voice of whoever he'd become after 138 loops. Second shifted on his shoulder. Uncomfortable.
Even the bird notices.
"Take the girl. Find shelter somewhere else. Could be a tunnel. Could be a collapsed building. Could be anywhere in this sector."
He tilted his head.
"And you're going to spend the next seven days wondering if I'm still out there. Wondering if I'm watching. Wondering if the next time you hear footsteps behind you in the dark, it's me."
Someone in the group whispered: "Oh God."
Sable's gaze stayed locked on Nash.
"Or," he said quietly, "you let us sit in a corner of your shelter. We rest. We eat. We don't cause problems. And in seven days when the Rain cycle ends, we leave. Clean. Simple. No wondering."
Nash's jaw worked. Processing. Calculating his own odds.
Sable took one more step forward. Slow. Deliberate.
His hands were still shaking. Phantom tremors from 138 deaths. But his eyes—mismatched, one brown, one blue—were utterly still. Empty.
The eyes of someone who'd stopped caring somewhere around death number seventy.
"Your choice," he said.
His voice dropped to something barely above a whisper:
"But choose fast. Because I'm very tired."
He tilted his head. The gesture that had become threat assessment. Mechanical. Predatory.
"And tired people make mistakes. And you don't want to see what my mistakes look like."
Silence.
Nash stared at him. At the blood on his clothes. At his mismatched eyes—one brown, one blue, both empty. At the bird on his shoulder. At the seven-year-old holding his hand.
At whatever floating above Sable's head that only Nash could see.
His hand tightened on the knife.
Then loosened.
Then moved away.
"Old subway maintenance station," Nash said. His voice came out strained. "Two blocks east. That's where we're going."
Sable waited.
"You can come," Nash continued. "But you stay where I can see you. You don't go near my people. You don't talk to them. You don't look at them wrong. And if I even *think* you're a problem—"
"You'll try to kill me," Sable finished. "I know. That's fair."
Nash's eyes narrowed. "You're not concerned about that?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Sable tilted his head. Met his eyes. His voice came out flat. Empty. Honest.
"Because if you try, you'll fail. And then I'll have to kill you. And then your people will try to kill me. And then I'll have to kill them. And then everyone dies and the girl doesn't get shelter."
He squeezed Ellaya's hand gently.
"I'd prefer to avoid that," he said. "So I'm going to sit quietly and not be a problem. And you're going to pretend I'm not there. And we'll all survive the next seven days."
Pause.
"Deal?"
Nash stared at him. At the casual way he'd described killing forty people. At the complete absence of bravado or threat in his voice. Just… *math*. Cost-benefit analysis delivered in monotone.
"You're serious," Nash said.
"Always."
Nash looked at his people. At their faces. At the fear.
Then back at Sable.
"Deal," he said.
And turned away.
Started walking.
—
While the group was walking. Someone in the group stumbled. A woman. Tripped on debris.
Fell backward.
Toward Sable.
The entire group froze. Turned. Watched.
Waiting to see what he'd do.
Sable stopped. Looked at her. She was on the ground. Three meters away. Staring up at him with wide eyes.
Terrified.
He stepped around her. Didn't offer a hand. Didn't speak. Just… walked past.
The woman exhaled. Someone helped her up.
They kept moving.
But now everyone was watching him. Constantly.
Checking over their shoulders. Making sure he was still behind them. Still keeping distance.
Still just… walking.
The group followed. Slowly. Carefully. Keeping distance from Sable like he was a live explosive.
Sable walked behind them. Ellaya's hand in his. Second on his shoulder.
No one spoke.
The only sound was boots on wet pavement and the distant screech of Torrent-borns hunting in the rain.
-----
They descended into the subway.
The entrance was a wound in the street. Stairs leading down into flickering chem-strip light that painted everything sickly green.
Nash gestured. People filed down in groups of five.
Sable waited. Let everyone else go first. Watched how they moved—checking corners, weapons ready, survival instinct honed sharp.
Ellaya tugged his hand. "It's dark down there."
"I know."
Her grip tightened. "I don't like the dark." Her voice dropped to almost-whisper. "That's when it came. The thing that got Mother. It was dark and I couldn't see and—"
She stopped. Swallowed hard. Sable knelt. Eye level with her. Phantom pain shot through his knees—loop seventy-three, shattered kneecaps—and he ignored it.
"I'll be right next to you," he said. Flat. Clinical. But steady. "The whole way down. If something comes, I'll handle it."
"Promise?"
He looked at her. At the desperate hope in her eyes. At the trust she was offering despite having watched him kill three men.
"Yes," he lied.
Because promises were easy. Keeping them was the hard part. And he'd already broken too many promises to count. But she needed to hear it.
So he said it.
She nodded. Squeezed his hand.
They descended into darkness.
-----
The subway was larger than expected. Old maintenance tunnels branching into darkness. Emergency strips humming overhead. The air smelled like rust and old concrete and human fear.
Thirty people already here. Huddled in groups. Some injured. Some crying quietly. Some just staring at nothing. Waiting.
Nash moved through them. Checking. Speaking in low tones. Calming.
Then he stopped.
Gestured to an older man. Grey-haired. Holding a bandage to his side.
They spoke. Quietly.
The older man's eyes widened. He looked at Sable.
His face went tight. Worried.
He said something to Nash. Nash nodded.
Then Nash turned. Looked at Sable.
Pointed to a corner. Far from everyone else. Isolated.
"There," he said. "You stay there. Don't move. Don't talk. Don't exist."
Sable nodded. "Understood."
He walked to the corner. Ellaya followed. Second flew ahead, checked it, came back. *Safe.*
They sat. Backs against cold concrete.
Ellaya pressed close. Seeking warmth.
Second landed on Sable's knee. The bird was shaking. Exhausted from hours of scouting.
"You did good," Sable muttered. Touched the bird's head gently. "Rest now."
Second chirped. Soft. Tired.
Ellaya looked up at him. "Are we safe?"
Sable looked around. At the forty people watching him. At Nash standing near the entrance, knife still in hand. At the tunnels branching into darkness where anything could be hiding.
"No," he said honestly. "But we're alive. That's close enough."
She nodded. Leaned against his shoulder.
Within minutes, she was asleep.
Sable sat there. Hands still shaking. Phantom pains from 138 deaths layering over each other. Mind still losing time, confusing timelines, struggling to remember which reality was real.
But Ellaya was warm. Second was breathing. And they were sheltered.
*For now.*
*That's all anyone gets down here.*
*For now.*
He closed his eyes.
And tried not to think about how many more times he'd have to die before this was over.
Across the subway, Nash watched him.
And wondered if letting the Sinner in was the smartest decision he'd ever made.
Or the last mistake he'd ever get to regret.