CHAPTER FIVE: The Collision

Silas threw the boots. Ava caught them against her chest without looking up from the suture she was practicing on rubber skin.

"Get ready," he said. "You’re coming with me to the pit."

Ava replied "You said not to—"

"I know what I said." He was already moving grabbing supplies, stuffing them into a canvas bag. "You’ll be counting bets tonight. Please try not to be bad at it. Don't steal."

She set the needle down. The boots went on—tight, automatic, no wasted motion. Two weeks of scrubbing blood and counting morphine and sleeping in three-hour shifts. Her hands were rough now. Her back didn't ache anymore. She'd stopped flinching when the steel door screamed.

Silas didn't wait. He walked to the steel door, pressed his palm to the scanner. The lock clicked.

Ava followed.

The hallway was narrow. Wet. Lit by bare bulbs that flickered when the crowd roared. The sound wasn't cheering—it was just noise. Animal. Pressed close enough to feel through the floor.

Ava's boots were loud. Silas walked faster. She kept up. The gauze shifted with every step, rubbing raw spots she couldn't feel yet. She didn't stop.

The hallway ended. Silas pushed through a second door.

The Pit.

Concrete bowl. No seats—people stood, shoulder to shoulder, smelling of sweat and money and violence. Silas pointed her toward a folding table near the back. Stacks of cash. A notebook. A pen that didn't work.

"Count. Write. Don't look up."

She sat. The fight was already going—two men, one bleeding from the scalp, still swinging. The crowd moved with each blow, a single body breathing.

Ava counted. Badly. The numbers kept sliding when the crowd roared. She wrote anyway. Silas would check later. Or he wouldn't.

A body hit the barrier three rows down. Hard. The concrete cracked. The crowd surged forward—some to help, some to take. Money scattered from a nearby table. Bills in the air, on the floor, in the blood.

Ava moved.

Not toward the fight. Toward the cash. She knelt, grabbed what she could, stuffing bills into her pocket without looking. Someone stepped on her hand. She didn't pull back. Just grabbed harder.

Then: running feet. Heavy. Fast.

She looked up too late.

He hit her shoulder-first. Chest like a wall. His hand caught her arm—not to steady her, to shove her aside. She was already shoving back.

Elbow up. Silas's reflex. No thought.

"Walk," she said.

He stopped.

Tall. Pale. Dark hair. Coat that cost more than the building. He stared down at her like she'd spoken wrong language.

"You're in my way," she added. Still kneeling. Still holding cash. Still not looking at his face.

The crowd streamed around them. He didn't move. Didn't continue chasing—she saw it now, the direction he'd been running, the man disappearing through a side door. Escaped. Gone.

Leo didn't notice.

He stared at her boots. Ragged, too big, wrapped in bloody gauze. Her hands—dirt under the nails, cash in the fist. Her face—angled up at him, impatient, unimpressed.

"Move," she said.

Silas appeared. Saw the situation. Froze.

"Ava." Careful. Controlled. "Get up."

"Can't." She stood anyway, brushing dirt from her knees. "He won't walk."

Leo looked at Silas. Then back at her. The wrongness of her—talking to him like he was furniture, like he was in her way.

"Who is this?" he asked Silas.

"No one."

"I'm someone," Ava said. She stepped closer, close enough to smell tobacco and something wild on his collar. "You're just not listening."

Leo laughed. Once. Not friendly. Surprised.

"You're bleeding," he noted.

"So are you."

He wasn't. But he looked at his own hand, confused, like he should be. Like she'd predicted something.

The crowd pressed closer. Someone recognized him—whispers, fear, space opening around them. Leo didn't notice. He was still blocking her light. Still staring.

He reached out. Not to touch her—to take the pen from her table. Broken, useless. He turned it in his fingers, then dropped it back.

"Fix the pen," he said. "Then count better."

He left. Finally. The crowd closed behind him like water.

Silas exhaled. "You just talked back to Leo Vane."

"Who?"

Silas stared at her. Then, almost—almost—smiling: "Get back to work. And next time, move."

Ava sat.

She counted the money wrong. Couldn't remember why she'd been angry.