The cot springs complained when Roachaline Vaslix sat up.
Morning pushed gray light through the cracked shutters of the factory office she had turned into a bedroom. The room smelled of ash, sweat, old smoke, and gun oil. Wind rattled the corrugated siding outside in uneven bursts, scraping metal against metal until her headache found the rhythm.
She touched the scar at her right temple.
The two shards in her chest answered before she asked them to. One burned red under the skin. The other sat lower and colder, violet light beating out of rhythm with the first. They fought each other inside her sternum and kept her blood too hot.
Her Ikona clicked in the corner.
The insect thing crawled out from under a desk, all black plates and hooked legs, the size of a hunting hound. Its mandibles worked through dust while it waited for orders.
