“I’m not sure what I expected after the cloning facility went down.” I laughed halfheartedly—this was not where I had expected to start. “When the roof collapsed, I expected to die. When I didn’t, I thought it would just be over, somehow. Like in the books, where the heroes finish their mission and everyone goes home and has coffee. Instead, we got disowned by our superiors and handed a city on fire. And riots. And looting, and murders. There—there were a lot of deaths the first month.”
My voice went thin as I admitted it—here, in the darkness of the stationary truck, I could acknowledge the pain that each death cost me. I’d gotten lucky three months ago, in that first month of nonstop violence. My power’s radius had been smaller, and I hadn’t felt deaths as acutely as I did now.
“We were able to knock the Blood Angels into a stalemate after that, but without Regional backing us up, there’s nowhere to send our opponents other than hell.” My stomach twisted at the thought. “Once they realized we couldn’t let them retreat and didn’t have anywhere to put them if they surrendered, they backed off. Well”—a bullet graze across my tricep, earned in a fight a few days ago, burned as I shifted positions—“most of the time.”
I tugged the edge of my T-shirt away from the healing wound and lifted the recorder closer to my face. “I guess there’s less violence now, not that it does anyone any good. Now it’s just wearing each other down and trying to survive. Corporations stopped sending shipments in once they realized the EDF was gone—I mean, why wouldn’t they? There’s no guarantee their merchandise would make it to the intended recipients, or that they’d get paid for what did arrive.”
I uncrossed my legs and let my feet swing free over the edge of the tailgate. “And power production is starting to suffer now that no one’s maintaining the solar fields. There’s nowhere to get parts, and no guarantee that the city stays calm while we fix what breaks. I guess the grids are okay for now, but next winter could be different.”
The bay doors were closed against the cold, but I still shivered. We’d lost power a few times when I was a kid, once in the dead of January, and the idea of an entire winter without heat was literally chilling.
“And after all of it, there are the ordinary people.” I heaved a sigh. “I’ve heard enough stories. Everyone here is living the same way I was—they’re desperate for an escape or a reason to get up and fight. And the ones that gave me both escape and purpose abandoned us to chaos.” My voice choked at the thought. “This region won’t survive much longer if things continue like this. The people here need stability, safety, a chance to raise their families and do more than survive…they don’t deserve this.”
In the Unbreaking releases November 12th, 2025! Preorder it by clicking HERE!
Brigitte Cromey 
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