The woman in the alley didn't look like the kind of person who got trapped in disasters.
Her hood was up, boots clean. Her hands stayed in her pockets, but Echo caught the tension in her wrists. She smiled like she'd already decided who they were.
"You hiding?" she asked again, voice soft enough to feel rude.
Lina didn't answer her. She shifted half a step so she blocked the back door with her body, shoulders squared, eyes flat. Thread didn't show as light; it showed as a change in the air, the way dust seemed to hesitate.
Kael stood behind her, just inside the shop, where the scent of rubber and oil sat thick in his throat. Jae was to Kael's left, hands open, breathing loud. Behind them, in the office, someone knocked a mug over. Ceramic clinked. A small gasp—Nina.
The hooded woman's gaze slid up Kael's chest like she could see the hum there. "Step out," she said.
Echo pulsed from the storm drain cover behind them. He wasn't there yet. He was waiting.
Lina's voice came low. "Who sent you?"
The woman's smile thinned. "A man with good manners."
"What's your Authority?" Lina asked.
The woman's eyes brightened. "Latch."
Kael didn't know what that meant until Echo tasted it: a pulling sensation at the seam of the back door, like an invisible hook trying to find purchase. Not brute force. Something that wanted to make locks believe they'd always been open.
Lina's jaw set. "Close the door."
Kael reached for it, but the moment his hand touched the metal, the latch mechanism clicked—once, twice—like it was answering a different hand.
He jerked back.
The woman watched him like she'd just proven a point. "You can't keep every exit."
"I'm not trying to," Kael said, and heard the shake in his own voice.
Her gaze stayed on him. "You're louder than you think."
Jae's teeth clicked. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because he asked," she said, as if that was the whole moral math. "People who move first get to name the rules."
The office door behind Kael banged open. Trev stumbled out, face pale under the gauze on his nose. His eyes were bright with the ugly kind of hope.
"What's happening?" he hissed.
"Back," Lina said, without looking.
Trev didn't move. His gaze fixed on the hooded woman. "Is that him?"
The woman looked past Lina toward Trev, assessing. "No. You're not important."
Trev's face tightened, humiliation curdling into anger.
Kael saw the moment—Echo flagged it as a spike—where Trev decided he'd rather die doing something than sit quietly.
Trev lunged for the back door.
Lina's Thread caught his wrist mid-swing. Trev hit the floor hard, breath knocked out of him. He clawed at the air, cursing, trying to sit up.
"You keep trying to trade people," Lina said, finally letting irritation into her voice. "And you're not even good at it."
Trev spat blood and laughed a little, broken. "At least I'm trying something."
The hooded woman's gaze snapped to Trev and held too long. Interest. Calculation.
Kael felt the pull inside his ribs shift. Infinite space. Ready. Wanting.
He pushed it down with both hands—metaphorically—like holding a door shut from the inside.
Lina kept her stance. "You want Kael. You don't get him."
The hooded woman shrugged, almost playful. "He's already yours. You just haven't admitted it."
Kael hated how accurate that felt.
From the front gate, three slow taps sounded—metal on metal, polite. The same rhythm as before.
"Kael," the calm voice called through the gate, muffled but intimate. "If you're in a shop, you should know: shops have receipts."
Rafael made a small, strangled sound from somewhere in the office. His fear bled into the air like gasoline vapor.
The hooded woman's smile sharpened. "Hear that? He's being patient for you."
Lina's eyes flicked to Kael. A silent question: how much can you do without breaking something?
Kael's jaw clenched. He reached for Echo—not the infinite. Just the thin interference. He sent it through the shop's frame toward the gate, smearing the resonance like wiping fingerprints off a mirror.
Pain flared behind his sternum. Immediate. It felt like a bruise pressed by a thumb.
Outside, the taps stopped.
A pause. Listening.
Then the voice came again, softer. "You're trying. That's good."
Kael's stomach dropped.
"He can still hear you," Jae whispered.
"I know," Kael said. And realized he meant more than the sound.
The hooded woman's keychain ring clicked again.
The back door's latch shifted.
Lina reacted instantly—Thread snapped tighter, anchoring the door to the frame, the frame to the floor, the floor to the building's bones. Kael felt it in his molars.
The latch fought anyway, like something insisting the story was different.
Kael stepped forward and put his palm flat against the door. He didn't shove. He listened. Echo traced the latch's internal rhythm, found the pattern, and disrupted it the way you disrupt a chant by changing one syllable.
The latch stuttered.
The hooded woman's smile faltered for the first time. Her eyes narrowed. "Echo."
Kael didn't answer.
"You're a problem," she said, and her tone finally carried something like dislike.
"That's not my goal," Kael muttered.
"It will be."
Behind Kael, Nina's voice came small. "Kael?"
He didn't turn. If he looked at her, he'd feel the thread trying to form again. He'd feel the little hook in his ribs that wanted to be fed.
"Stay with Marta," he said.
"But—"
"Stay," Marta snapped before Kael could, her voice sharp enough to cut fear. "Do not call him like a prayer."
Nina fell silent.
The hooded woman laughed, delighted. "Oh. You're learning too."
Trev managed to get to his knees, breathing hard. "Let me go," he rasped at Lina. "I can talk. I can—"
"You'll betray us," Lina said, matter-of-fact. "And you'll tell yourself it was survival."
Trev's eyes flashed. "You don't know me."
Lina's gaze stayed cold. "I do."
The front gate rattled again—this time not taps. The motor whined without being pressed. The metal shivered down an inch, then stopped, as if someone outside had convinced the machine it wanted to open.
Rafael screamed from the office. "No! Don't—"
The gate dropped another inch.
Kael's chest tightened. Echo tasted Latch at the front now too—hooks in every seam.
The hooded woman's eyes remained on Lina, but the corner of her mouth twitched like she was listening to a song only she could hear. "He's inside your gate," she murmured.
Lina swore. "Rafael!"
A crash. A drawer slammed. Footsteps. Rafael burst from the office into the main shop, eyes wild, hands shoved deep into his pockets. His sweatshirt sleeves glowed faintly at the cuffs.
"I didn't touch it," he choked. "I didn't—"
He wasn't lying. The gate wasn't responding to him. It was responding to the story being told into it.
Kael moved toward Rafael. "Look at me."
Rafael's eyes snapped to Kael's face the way drowning people grab air.
The glow in his sleeves flared, then dipped.
"Breathe," Lina said, without turning her head. "In. Out."
Rafael tried. Failed. Tried again.
The gate dropped another inch.
Outside, the calm voice spoke through the metal, conversational. "Rafael. It's your shop. You should open the gate for a customer."
Rafael's mouth opened. No words came out.
Kael saw it then—Echo flagged the pattern: the voice wasn't forcing the motor. It was forcing Rafael's brain. Not mind control. Something older: social reflex. The polite instinct to comply with someone who speaks like they belong.
Kael's stomach turned.
Lina's Thread snapped toward Rafael's pocket—trying to keep his hands in place, to keep him from reaching for the gate control. But Rafael's fear made his body jitter.
"Kael," Jae said, voice cracked. "What do we do?"
Kael stared at the gate, at the fraction of open space growing like a wound. The hum behind his sternum deepened, endless and patient.
He could push. Amplify. Slam the gate down, break the motor, weld the metal shut by force of will.
He could also blow out every signature in this block and paint a target on them that would follow them for days.
He thought of Nina's eyes. Of Mara's shaking hands. Of Rafael's sweat and the glow in his sleeves.
He thought of the calm voice saying his name like it had rights to it.
Kael made a decision that felt like swallowing glass.
He didn't push harder.
He changed the story.
He turned to Rafael and spoke with absolute, boring certainty. "This isn't your shop right now."
Rafael blinked, confused.
Kael kept his voice steady, as if he was explaining a receipt dispute. "You're not the owner. You're the employee. The owner is gone. You can't open anything without permission."
It was ridiculous. It was also something Rafael's brain could grab—a role, a rule, a piece of order in chaos.
Rafael's breath hitched. His eyes focused. "I— I can't."
Kael nodded once. "You can't."
The gate's motor whined again, then stuttered, like it had hit a sentence it couldn't parse.
Outside, silence.
Then the calm voice laughed, not loud—just enough to be heard. "Clever."
The gate stopped moving.
For a beat, nobody breathed.
Then the hooded woman sighed, almost disappointed. "He's going to enjoy you."
She lifted the keychain ring and flicked it a third time.
This time, instead of opening a door, the air in the alley sharpened into a line—a hook thrown into the shop.
Echo felt it immediately: a latch trying to attach to Kael's signature, to tag it, to make it easier to follow.
Lina reacted, Thread snapping outward like a net. The two Authorities collided in the doorway, invisible tug-of-war.
Kael stepped forward into it because he couldn't let Lina take it alone. He pressed Echo into the hook, smearing its edge, making it slip.
Pain flared again, hotter. He bit his tongue.
The hook slid off him—and latched onto something else.
Nina yelped.
Kael spun.
A thin shimmer of pressure clung to Nina's sleeve where she gripped Marta. Not a chain. Not a rope. A "touch" that said: here.
Marta's eyes widened. "No."
The hooded woman's smile returned, satisfied. "There."
Lina's face went hard. "She's under twenty."
"Then she's safe," the woman said lightly. "He won't take her. He'll use her."
Kael's stomach dropped.
The calm voice at the gate spoke at the same time, as if he'd felt the latch land. "Ah."
Kael moved toward Nina. He didn't touch her—didn't want to make it worse. He pushed Echo gently around the latch, trying to blur it the way you blur ink on wet paper.
The latch held. Sticky. Clever.
The hooded woman watched him work, curious. "You don't know how to erase a story," she said. "You only know how to stutter it."
Kael's jaw clenched. "Then I'll stutter until it breaks."
Lina's Thread snapped toward Nina's sleeve, trying to cut the latch off like a loose thread. It resisted, anchored in something deeper than fabric.
Kael's panel flickered at the edge of his vision—annoying, calm:
INPUT DETECTED: FEAR (CHILD)
INPUT DETECTED: ATTENTION (MULTIPLE)
SUGGESTION: AMPLIFY OUTPUT
Kael ignored it.
He crouched in front of Nina, close enough that she had to look at him. Her eyes were huge. She tried to be brave and failed.
"You're not going to die," Kael said quietly. "But you have to do exactly what I say."
Nina swallowed. "Okay."
"Don't say my name," Kael said. "Not like that. Don't think of me like that."
Her lower lip trembled. "Then what do I do?"
Kael breathed in. The alley smelled like wet trash and cold metal. The shop smelled like oil and fear.
He forced his voice to stay plain. "Think of the latch like gum," he said. "It sticks to what you keep touching. So stop touching it."
Nina frowned, confused.
"Let go of Marta," he said.
Marta's grip tightened. "No."
"Marta," Kael said, sharper. "Trust me."
Marta hesitated, then loosened her hold. Nina's fingers slid off her sleeve.
The shimmer clung to Nina's sleeve—then, with nothing else to attach to, it sagged.
Kael saw the opening.
"Step forward," he told Nina. "One step. Then stop."
Nina did it, small sneakers scuffing concrete.
The latch stretched, like taffy.
Kael reached into his pocket and pulled out the one thing he had that wasn't magic: a roll of greasy duct tape from Rafael's counter. He ripped a strip free, wrapped it around the exact spot the shimmer clung, then yanked the tape off hard.
The shimmer came with it.
For a heartbeat, the latch hung in the air, attached to nothing, wobbling like a thrown hook that missed.
Lina snapped Thread through it.
This time it cut.
Not clean. Not pretty. But cut.
The shimmer collapsed into nothing.
Nina staggered back into Marta's arms, shaking.
The hooded woman's expression sharpened into something like anger. "That was rude," she said.
Kael stood slowly, knees aching. "Leave."
She laughed, low. "You think I have to win tonight?"
The calm voice behind the gate spoke again, mild. "Kira."
So that was her name.
Kira's eyes flicked toward the gate, annoyed at being called like a dog. "Yes?"
"You've confirmed what I needed," the voice said. "Come back."
Kira's smile thinned. She looked at Kael once more, committing him to memory. "See you," she said, and meant it.
She stepped backward into the alley shadows. For a second, Echo felt her Authority tug at the air—checking seams, testing exits—then it vanished like she'd slipped through a crack that wasn't there before.
Kael's skin prickled. He didn't like the idea that doors in this city might not stay doors.
Silence settled, heavy.
Then the front gate tapped once—soft, almost affectionate.
"Kael," the calm voice said. "You just saved a child without amplifying. Good restraint."
Kael didn't answer.
"Your friend Rafael will fail if you keep him frightened," the voice continued. "Your group will fracture if you keep feeding them hope you won't fulfill."
Kael felt each sentence like a finger pressing bruises.
"I can wait," the voice said. "But your night won't."
The gate didn't move. No motor. No force.
Just the feeling of being watched through metal.
Lina exhaled, slow. Her hands shook slightly, and she hid it by reaching for the door handle and shutting the back door fully, latch clicking home like a small prayer.
"We leave," she said.
"Where?" Jae asked, voice hoarse.
Lina's eyes tracked the ceiling, the back wall, the floor. "Not through the back," she said. "He's learning that route. We go through the front, but not like fugitives."
Trev let out a bitter laugh. "Like customers?"
Lina's gaze cut to him. "Like people who belong."
Kael stared at the front gate. Belonging was a story too, and tonight stories were weapons.
In the office, Mara whispered something Kael couldn't hear, and her hands glowed faintly as if the fear had finally found a place to sit.
Kael took a slow breath, tasting oil and copper, and forced the hum behind his sternum to stay quiet.
Outside, the calm voice waited.