Jett watched the first shafts of dawn spearing over the horizon and sighed, sitting down on the hard-packed mud of the trackside. Her body was stiff, the gash in her leg aching from the armbow bolt, and her shoulder badly cramped after landing on the tram carrier.

She rubbed her eyes. A night trudging along the tracks and scratching out a small hovel to sleep in the mud left her longing for the simple bed in Hiyfa's warrenary, but she couldn't go back there—not ever. Slinging the pack between her legs, she eased it open, inspecting the contents warily.

One of the ramfold boards had been smashed to pieces in the chase, but the block drive from her computer was still intact, protected by the thick wad of clothing she'd wrapped it in. Karno's snooper module had survived, but the anti-hack mod was a ruin. She tossed it aside and delved into the pack for some food.

Nibbling at strips of dried rat meat, she sat there, thinking. On some level, she ought to have been more shaken by the events of the previous night, but for some reason, a sense of resignation reigned supreme over her now. It had been naive to think the wolfkin would never find her, and now that it had happened, it was simply another obstacle to overcome.

For a few minutes, she rested there, running through her options, taking stock of what she had left. Bronco and Rapid would be waiting for her call, and she would be alive to make it—she would make sure of that. But she also needed to hold up her end of things. Everything that happened tracked back to the enforcers. She just needed to expose them.

It was time to pick up where Zanzihar had left off.

Jett needed a computer—or at least access to one. She scratched behind her ear and grimaced, knowing realistically she only had one option. Taking a deep breath, she climbed gingerly upright, rolling her injured shoulder with a wince. Nothing felt out of place; probably just a sprain, she decided.

First things first, she needed to get off the tracks before some rail worker stumbled across her. The last thing she needed now was that kind of attention. A few hundred meters down the track, she found a service ladder and clambered up into the rising dawn, emerging onto the quiet morning streets.

She spotted a few scattered citizens on their way to work, but no one paid much attention to the lone bedraggled foxkin. Looking around, she tried to get her bearings again. Although she wasn't sure exactly how far the tram carrier had gotten before her improvised exit, she knew she'd made it back into the same district where she'd made her escape. That meant there would probably still be wolfkin on the prowl for her here. Hitching the scuffed and battered pack higher onto her shoulders, she started walking, head lowered but eyes constantly flickering for any sign of her pursuers.

The only thing that might work in her favour was the blind stupidity of returning to the scene of the crime so soon. Time to play a dangerous game of bluff with the wolfkin enforcers, banking on the fact they would assume she was smart enough not to do exactly what she was about to.

The section of the track she'd clambered out of looped around the north edge of the district, meaning she would be coming at the basin far from the tram carrier station itself. Hopefully, that would limit the wolfkin patrols. With a wary eye, she stuck to the tight alleys and narrow spaces between the buildings, clad in a fresh set of clothes that she'd had the presence of mind to pack.

Instead of hanging in loose, flowing locks, her white headfur was now swept back beneath a silken headscarf, from which her ears protruded like spear points. A long-sleeved grey bodywrap covered her torso above a short black kilt—if a description of her had been circulated, she wouldn't match it directly. Even if it only turned away a few curious eyes, it would be worth it.

It took the better part of an hour for her to pick her way into the busier part of the district, dodging a pair of vulkin guard patrols and a trio of grim-faced wolfkin along the way. It seemed the incident at the warrenary hadn't spread its tendrils through the district at large yet. Most people seemed to be going about their business as usual, and Jett joined them, sticking with groups of fast-moving, fast-talking workers to shield her from prying eyes.

At last, she made her way into the waking markets, the smell of food making her stomach growl as it wafted from cafes and open-air roasting pits. She quashed the sensation reluctantly, keeping her mind on the one priority—getting access to a computing rig. Spending any more time in this district than necessary made things exponentially more dangerous. Food would have to wait.

Fleur's shop came into view, and she hesitated, dithering briefly in the flow of citykin before squaring her shoulders and walking up to the door. Casting a furtive glance left and right, she took a deep breath, opened it, and stepped quietly over the threshold like a thief.

Closing the door behind her, she looked over to the counter, but Fleur was nowhere to be seen. Frowning, she took a step forward, scenting the air. There was nothing untoward—just the usual metallic tang from the equipment on the shelves before a voice called through from the back room.

"Be out in a second!"

A shudder of relief passed through her, and her shoulders relaxed slightly. Folding her arms, she waited, footpaw tap-tapping against the floor. She blinked away the tiredness that threatened to come creeping up over her once more, her night in the ditch a poor substitute for an actual bed.

A few seconds later, the felkin emerged from the back room, clad in a high-collared blue bodywrap and crimson longkilt, wiping her paws down on a crisp white cloth. She looked up, and for a split second, something flashed across her face, some mingling of fear and recognition. It was gone so fast that Jett wasn't even sure she'd seen it, exhausted and aching all over from the previous night's chaos.

"Jett!" Fleur exclaimed, and a winning smile burst across her face. "Good to see you! What brings you back here?"

"I..." Jett glanced around, the fur on the back of her neck prickling with unease. Something felt wrong. "I need to use your rig."

"Something wrong with the one I sold you?"

A tightness in the smile, something stiff in Fleur's normally gliding walk.

"No, no, it works fine," Jett replied. "There's an issue with the howl-net at the warrenary, and I've got some things to do that are a little time sensitive."

"Oh, right, of course." Fleur beckoned. "You can use my personal rig. It's set up through the back." She started to turn, but Jett caught the flicker of her friend's eyes towards the door behind her. Jett glanced back, muscles tensing, but there was nothing behind her, just the closed door of the shop.

Even still, she reached back, instinctively loosening the longclaw in its sheathe as she followed. She scented the air again but couldn't smell anything beyond Fleur's exotic musks and the metal of the computing gear that surrounded her.

"It's probably not got the same kick as what you're used to," Fleur said as they entered the back room. Metal shelving units rose up around them to form a gridiron arrangement of meticulously organised parts, illuminated by low-level lighting bars in the ceiling. "But I'm sure you'll make do."

They turned left through the maze, then right.

"I'd ask what you need it for, but I guess you wouldn't want to tell me?"

"Probably best if I don't," Jett agrees, still scanning her surroundings warily.

"Probably." Then Fleur stopped, turning back to face her as though she'd forgotten something. "Oh, Jett, one more thing?"

"What?"

"It's a trap."

She said it in such a matter-of-fact way that Jett didn't register the full import of the words at first. Only when Fleur suddenly threw herself sideways into one of the shelving units did reality slam home. The shelf toppled, sending its heavy metal structure along with a shower of bulky equipment crashing down on a wolfkin that had half-emerged from the shadows at Fleur's warning. The shelf knocked the enforcer flat, his snarl of rage tearing through the workshop.

Jett tore her longclaw free at the sound of the front door bursting open, spinning around and ducking to the side of the narrow doorway as another enforcer came hurtling through. Jett's outstretched footpaw tripped the female wolfkin, sending her crashing forward with a curse. Fleur heaved a bulky rig-casing from the nearest shelf and dropped it down on the enforcer's head for good measure before gesturing frantically for Jett to follow her.

"Out the back!" Fleur blurted, her voice shrill with panic. "Quick!"

Gathering up the hem of her longkilt, the felkin whirled and darted deeper into the maze of shelves. Jett followed, planting a footpaw hard between the shoulder blades of the dazed enforcer as she lay groaning. The other wolfkin thrashed wildly, smashing and tearing at the equipment as he started to lever the shelf off of him.

Not wasting another second, Jett bolted through the passage after her friend. A thousand questions boiled up in her mind, and she suppressed them with an effort of will. Careening around a bend, she stumbled, bashing her shoulder hard off one unyielding shelf before scrambling in pursuit of the flourishing red longkilt.

She turned right to find Fleur sprinting for a secondary access door at the rear of the building, concealed between mountains of disused equipment awaiting recycling and reclamation. The felkin looked back over her shoulder, beckoning desperately.

"Hurry!"

As if she needed to be told. Jett forced whatever strength she could muster into her limbs and followed, only to see a third enforcer slide out from a gap in the shelving ahead of them, a big, brawny male with an armbow aimed.

His lips drew back in a snarl as he fired.

Fleur turned back, straight into the path of the bolt. It thudded into her stomach, and she lurched to a halt, a spluttering cough of shock escaping from her lips. Then she staggered and crumpled to her knees.

"Fleur!" Jett screeched, exploding forward as the wolfkin stepped towards them, loading a fresh bolt into his armbow. She hurdled Fleur's gasping body, feinted to the right, and then ducked sharply back to the left as the enforcer fired. The bolt nicked her shoulder, but she barely noticed, rage driving her into a wild lunge, the point of her longclaw aimed at the enforcer's stomach.

He reacted with practised ease to the aggression, twisting his body aside to avoid the stabbing point. As she barrelled past, one of his paws clamped shut around the scruff of her neck, and he used her momentum, swinging her hard into the nearest shelf.

Jett's slight frame smashed into the metal, and she collapsed in a heap, shielding her head from falling debris. She rolled as he tried to stamp down on her and slashed with her knife at the enforcer's knee, the blade biting into the small gap in the armour plates at the joint. Blood spat from the wound, and the wolfkin recoiled with a curse, swinging his other leg hard into her flank with enough force to lift her off the ground.

She smashed into the door, and it burst open under the impact; suddenly, Jett found herself engulfed in daylight. Scrambling breathlessly to her feet, she saw the wolfkin stalking towards her, but something moved behind him.

Her eyes widened as she saw Fleur rise to her feet, the felkin's normally delicate features wrenched with pain and anger. In her paws, she clutched a heavy cylindrical cooling stack, and with a yowl, she brought it crashing down on the enforcer's skull. The stack broke apart over his head, sending wires and smashing coils in all directions, and the wolfkin staggered forward for a moment.

Quicker than Jett thought possible, the enforcer suddenly spun around, a guttural growl of fury spitting from between clenched teeth. Then he lunged, clamping his powerful jaws down into the juncture between Fleur's neck and shoulder. The felkin's scream ripped out into the city, even as Jett stumbled desperately back inside to help her. The few meters she needed to cover proved to be too far, and she watched in horror as Fleur's slender body was shaken like a ragdoll.

The wolfkin enforcer jerked his head savagely from side to side, his long canines anchored deep in his victim's flesh. His bulging neck muscles allowed him to swing her body into the shelves on either side of the narrow passage, splattering blood in all directions as he bit deeper and deeper until she finally stopped screaming. He unlatched his jaws, letting Fleur's limp frame crumple to the floor in a pool of blood.

Then Jett reached him and rammed her longclaw up to its hilt in the base of his neck.

She howled with effort as she twisted the blade with all the force she could muster. The enforcer's bulky frame jerked and twitched for a moment before she yanked the longclaw free again, spraying gore across the ceiling.

The wolfkin's corpse thudded wetly to the ground, but Jett ignored it, sliding to her knees by Fleur's side. A whine of shock ebbed in the back of her throat as she looked at the horrendous wounds inflicted by the enforcer's jaws. Her left shoulder and upper torso were a ruined mass of torn flesh, with blood pumping out onto the shop floor. In her stomach, the armbow bolt still protruded, more blood soaking an expanding dark circle against the fabric of her bodywrap.

"C'mon, Fleur, stay with me!" Jett rasped, taking the felkin's uninjured arm across her shoulder and heaving her to her feet. Barely conscious, Fleur only managed a low mewl of pain, stumbling along as best she could, but they only made it a dozen meters into the alley behind the shop before her legs gave out.

They fell together, and Jett let out a shrill growl, slumping into a sitting position and pulling Fleur across her lap. She tore the headscarf free and pressed it over the wound in Fleur's shoulder, a sense of utter futility descending on her like a storm cloud. The fabric darkened instantly, and the scent of blood filled Jett's nostrils. The felkin gasped and wretched, crimson spilling out across her chin.

"Fleur, you've got to get up," Jett whined helplessly. "We've got to go." A clang and a snarl from within the shop made her look back wide-eyed. There were two more enforcers still alive and coming for them.

A sudden grip on her wrist jerked her gaze down again, and she found herself staring into Fleur's burning golden eyes.

"K-Karno," the felkin gurgled, blood welling through her clenched teeth as her body spasmed violently. "Get to...Karno. He knows...knows the wolves. He can...help you." Then she broke off with a long, anguished yowl.

"Nonono," Jett blurted, cradling her friend's head in one paw as she tried desperately to quell the bleeding with the other. "C'mon, Fleur, don't give them this. Stick with me. I can...I can..."

The felkin shook her head weakly. "S-sorry. They came looking...couldn't...warn you...in time."

"Fangs, I'm sorry." Jett blinked furiously, shaking her head. "This is my fault. I never should have come to you."

"But...you did. It's...done now." Fleur gripped her paw with a final surge of strength. "Just...do what you have to do. Make it...right, Jett. And"—she hacked out a cough of blood, fighting to get the words out—"whatever...they're doing...can't trust them. You have to..."

More coughs wracked her body, and Jett squeezed her paw, swallowing down the lump in her throat.

"I'll stop them, Fleur. I promise you."

"And...do one more...thing for me?"

"Anything, anything!"

Fleur forced a smile through her agony. "Clean yourself up...won't you? You're...quite a state."

"Of course I will," Jett choked out as hot tears finally spilled down her cheeks.

"G-good."

Then she was gone. A last rasp of breath and Fleur's ravaged body sagged in her grip, eyes glazing over as she went limp.

Jett screwed her eyes shut, her body shaking with silent sobs of grief. She hugged her friend's body close, uncaring of the blood that coated her clothes. Then she threw her head back, and with every molecule of air in her lungs, she unleashed a howl of rage that echoed across the morning air.