Ten Percent

Only a fool hears a quiet sky and calls it peace.

Rosalie did not look away. The autumn wind pulled dark hair across her cheek, but she stood like a post driven into rock. Behind the mine gate, a crane groaned as it lowered steel plate off a flatbed. Between her and Xavier Knight, the noise seemed to drop out, and the space stretched tight as a bowstring.

"A lab report," Rosalie said. "And you came here with a piece of paper instead of a team of scientists. Either the report is weak, Commander, or you do not trust it enough to act on it."

Xavier did not blink. His gray eyes had a stillness she remembered from her old life, the look of a man who had walked through bad places and learned to read faces in them.

"Ordinary people buy air scrubbers for mold," he said. He stepped off the road and stopped two feet from her, tall enough to block the afternoon sun. "They do not order forty thousand respirator filters, a pallet of blast doors, and enough water purifier to run a small town. That is not comfort, Mrs. Calloway. That is a siege list."

"Miss West," Rosalie said. "My lawyers filed the name change with the divorce petition this afternoon."

Something flickered in his eyes. He waited.

"And my orders are my own business," she went on, closing the last step between them. She could smell cedar and gun oil on his jacket. "If you came to take my supplies for your squad, you wasted the drive. The deed was signed an hour ago. This mine belongs to my foundation, and I do not sell."

"The notice says the state can take it anyway." He held the folded paper up between two gloved fingers. "I do not like using it. But I have men who need clean air, and you are sitting on most of the state's stock."

"Then you should have moved faster," Rosalie said. "Money pays for speed. You were slow."

Before he could answer, tires screamed behind them.

A silver Mercedes tore up the access road, skidded across the gravel, and stopped crooked behind her SUV. The driver's door flew open. Nicholas stumbled out with his tie loose and his jacket gone, his face dark red. Sera climbed out of the passenger side, clutching a handbag to her chest, eyes already wet.

He must have tracked the car through the family app. Rosalie almost felt sorry for how long it had taken him.

"Rosalie!" Nicholas stormed toward her. "Do you know what you did? My board froze my signing authority! The bank called a demand note on the building!"

He did not notice the black transport, or the man beside her. He saw only her, and he swung his arm to grab hers.

"You are going to fix this right now! You will call Lowell and..."

He never touched her.

Xavier moved so fast it looked like a skip in the film. One gloved hand closed around Nicholas's throat and stopped him mid stride. Xavier did not shift his feet. He simply held him there, lifting him onto his toes.

Nicholas choked and clawed at the glove.

"Touch her," Xavier said, in a voice so quiet the air seemed to cool, "and I will break that hand."

Sera shrieked and clapped her palms to her mouth. "Nick!"

Rosalie did not flinch. She watched the man who had once held a glass jar steady while she bled, and felt a small, cold satisfaction at the sight of him gasping.

"Let him go, Commander," she said. "He is not worth the wear on your gloves."

Xavier opened his hand. Nicholas dropped to his knees, coughing, holding his neck, glaring up with fear and shame mixed together.

"Who the hell are you?" he rasped.

Xavier did not answer. He did not even look down. His eyes stayed on Rosalie. He was testing her. He wanted to see if she would soften at the sight of the man she had once called husband.

She walked past Xavier and stopped in front of Nicholas. She looked at him the way you look at something you have just stepped over.

"You told me I could not last a week without you," Rosalie said. Her voice carried across the gravel. "But you were living on my grandfather's money, wearing clothes my inheritance paid for, and playing executive with my name on the checks."

"Rosalie, please," Sera whimpered, edging forward, lip trembling. "We were only trying to secure our future. Nick loved you. He just had responsibilities to my family."

"Be quiet, Sera." Rosalie did not turn her head. "Save the tears for the bank manager. You will need them when your apartment is repossessed in the morning."

She looked down again. "You signed the mine over. It is mine. By tonight every asset you ever touched will be stripped. No money. No leverage. No capital."

Nicholas stared up, wild with spite. "You think you won? You took a hole in the ground! I still have my contacts. I still have the Calloway name!"

"Keep the name." Rosalie bent until only he could hear. "In thirteen days, the Calloway name will not buy you one clean breath."

She straightened and turned her back on him.

"Commander Knight," she said. "My site foreman is waiting at the loading dock. If you want to talk about ten percent of my scrubbers, follow me. If not, get off my gate."

A slow smile spread across Xavier's hard face. It was not warm. It was the look of a hunter who has met another hunter on the trail.

"Ten percent is an insult, Miss West." He fell into step beside her. "We will talk about twenty."

"You will take ten, and tear up that notice, and be grateful."

"Twenty, and I tear it up."

"Ten," Rosalie said, not breaking stride. "And two of your men stay at the gate. They answer to me."

He was quiet for three steps. "Done."

Behind them Nicholas screamed her name. It bounced off the rock face and came back thin. She did not turn. She did not look at Sera sobbing against the car, or at Nicholas dragging himself up out of the dust.

At the mouth of the mine, the loading dock opened onto a long tunnel lit with work lamps. Crates of rations stood stacked to the ceiling. Rows of generators hummed on pallets. Somewhere below, drills were already biting into salt.

The blue page opened in the corner of her sight.

[Sanctuary Ledger update.]

[Halden Salt Mine fortification: 25 percent.]

[Primary air system: online.]

[Debtor note: Nicholas Calloway. Public humiliation recorded. Balance: partial.]

[Time until Spore Fog outbreak: 13 days, 18 hours, 42 minutes.]

Rosalie stepped into the cool dark. The clock was running, her enemies were already bleeding, and under the lake, the sanctuary was taking shape.