Five days. That was all it took for Novara Prime to turn a massacre into tavern gossip. Market stalls reopened, merchants barking prices over the memory of the dead. Above it all, the temple bells rang loud, hollow, and utterly indifferent. Life folded itself back over the wound, pretending the scar wasn't there.
Frankie moved through the throngs like a wire pulled to the snapping point.
The bruises had faded into yellow-green smears, and the stiffness was gone. But something sharper had taken root beneath her skin. She walked without stumbling now. She reacted to a shoulder-bump before it happened. The city didn't feel like home anymore, it felt like a sleeping beast she was trying not to kick.
The system didn't speak. It didn't have to. It was simply there, cold and patient, coiled around her spine like a second skeleton.
Sofia noticed. Children are built to spot the "wrong" in their world.
"You don't get tired," Sofia said one morning. She was watching Frankie haul a sloshing bucket up three flights of stairs without even a break in her breath.
Frankie set the iron pail down with a dull, heavy thud. "I'm just used to it, Sof."
Sofia narrowed her eyes, her face pinched with suspicion. "That's not normal used-to-it. That's Hermes-touched stuff. Did a god mess with you?"
Frankie flicked her sister's forehead, forcing a lightness she didn't feel. "If one did, they forgot to pay. Thank Hermes for me if you see him."
Sofia giggled, then the mirth died. "Did the gods really save everyone in the Zone?"
Frankie went still. The memory of the silver light and the dust-shrieks clawed at her throat. "No. People saved each other. The rest just watched from the balcony."
Sofia nodded. Slum-truth always landed clean.
But the iron tokens from the registry didn't stretch. Bread shrank. Meat became a myth. Frankie watched Sofia chew slower each day, a quiet, desperate trick to pretend hunger was a choice.
The decision made itself. Sofia would not fade into a ghost while marble towers glowed fat with stolen gold.
The knock came at midnight.
Three taps. Hard. Impatient.
Rafe stood in the doorway like a bad habit she'd never quite kicked. Scarred knuckles. A grin that didn't reach his eyes. He was a man who counted exits and weaknesses before he even said hello.
"Harder to kill than I thought," he said, his voice a low rasp.
"So are you," Frankie replied.
He nodded toward the mattress. "Little star."
"I knew she'd come back," Sofia said, her voice small but certain.
Rafe chuckled, but his gaze snapped back to Frankie. He saw the change. He saw the way she stood different, her weight centered, hands steady, like tripping wasn't a biological possibility anymore.
"You walk different," he whispered. "Like you've forgotten how to fall."
"I learned to survive. What do you want, Rafe?"
His grin sharpened, showing a chipped tooth. "We're going to Milan."
The name cooled the room. Even the shadows seemed to pull back.
"The dead city?" Sofia whispered.
Rafe nodded. "Ten kilometers into the Zone. No patrols. No priests. No laws. Just sealed homes and medicine cabinets untouched since the day the world broke. It's all still there, Frankie. Waiting for someone with hands enough to take it."
Frankie didn't think of the danger. She thought of coats. Real cheese. A life where her sister didn't have to count her chews.
"People die on Milan runs," she said.
"People die standing still," Rafe countered. "At least this way, we pick the blade."
Sofia tugged Frankie's sleeve, her eyes wide. "Will you bring back something sweet?"
Frankie crouched, brushing the hair from her sister's face. The girl felt too light. Too fragile. "I'll try, Sof. I'll try."
Rafe left without waiting for a formal 'yes.' He'd seen the look in her eyes. He already had his answer.
Luca arrived later, stepping out of the gloom like a silent reproach. He didn't ask what Rafe wanted; he'd smelled the man's ambition from the alley.
"You're going," he said.
"Yes."
"It's illegal. Sacrilege."
"So is starving."
Luca exhaled through his nose, a jagged sound. He looked at Sofia's sleeping form, then back at Frankie. "I'm coming. Someone has to make sure you don't forget who you are in that graveyard."
They didn't shake hands. They didn't need to.
At sunset, five shadows gathered at a forgotten drainage gate beneath the western wall. Moss. Dripping filth. Stone that no guard bothered to watch because no sane person wanted to go out.
Rafe checked the packs. Rope. Salt. Knives. Masks.
Frankie and Luca joined two other runners, strangers with steady hands and the kind of dead eyes that come from seeing too much of the Zone.
No prayers were whispered. No blessings were asked. No divine gaze followed them.
They slipped into the tunnel.
Darkness swallowed them whole.
Behind them, Novara Prime glowed in arrogant, golden light. Ahead, the Death Zone waited, silent, endless, and hungry.
Ten kilometers away, the steel forest of Milan stood untouched. A city of treasure, of monsters, and of truths the gods had tried to bury.
Frankie felt the amulet warm against her chest, a heat that was starting to feel like home. The system stirred, sensing the feast ahead.
She was no longer just a thief.
She would enjoy this.