Page 230 of Fractured Loyalties

Lydia circles me once, like she’s looking for weaknesses. “Corners,” she says suddenly. “Worst place to be. Most of the time, you’ll end up there without meaning to.”

She pushes me, guiding me back until the edge of the wall presses into my spine.

“What now?” she asks.

“I don’t know.”

“You do.” Her voice sharpens. “Think.”

I force myself to move. The baton lifts. My elbow drives forward as if someone is closing in. I pivot, hip scraping the wall, and push myself sideways out of the corner. It’s clumsy, graceless, but I’m free of it.

“Not terrible.” Lydia folds her arms. “But speed matters more than clean execution. Panic makes you freeze. Freeze gets you dragged.”

I nod, trying to settle the thundering inside me.

She moves back and reaches for the tablet, swipes through more frames of the cameras. “Street work is trickier. You think someone’s following you, you check reflections. Glass. Chrome bumpers. Phone screens. Not by turning your head like a frightened rabbit.”

Her finger jabs at the screen. A woman passing a shop window, glancing sideways without moving her head. “That’show you do it. They think you’re admiring yourself, not clocking their shadow.”

I study the image. The Civic comes back to mind, always just far enough not to touch me. Always present. A shadow.

“And if I do spot them?” I ask.

“You don’t confront.” Lydia’s mouth twists. “You don’t pull some movie heroine shit and shout in the middle of the street. You get unpredictable. Cross mid-block. Step into a store you’ve never been in. Switch sides three times in one block. People who are hunting you don’t like patterns. Break yours.”

“And if they still follow?”

She leans in, gaze like steel. “Then you hit first.”

The words sink deep, sharp as the baton in my hand. My pulse pounds so loud I swear she hears it.

I grip the weapon tighter. “What if I freeze anyway?”

“Then you die.” She says it without blinking. “So don’t.”

Her bluntness is cruel and freeing at the same time. There’s no soft lie to cling to, no promise that hesitation is safe. Only truth.

My throat burns, but I make myself nod.

Lydia finally picks up her jacket now, slides it over one shoulder. “That’s enough for now. Elias will have a fit if you’ve got bruises when he walks in.”

Something bitter stirs in me. “And if he doesn’t walk in?”

Her eyes flick to mine, unreadable. “Then you’ll be glad I didn’t go easy on you.”

Her words hang in the air long after she says them.If he doesn’t walk in.I hate that it feels possible. I hate that I believe her.

The baton is still in my grip, warm from my palm, heavier than it has any right to be. I lower it carefully to the table beside Lydia’s bag, the metal clinking against wood. My fingers don’t uncurl right away—they ache, stiff with the effort of pretending I’m stronger than I am.

“You’re shaking less,” she notes.

“I’m still shaking.”

“Good. Means you’re alive.”

I laugh once, sharp and humorless. “That’s the bar?”

“It’s the only bar that matters.”