I was three blocks from the dead-end alley when I heard footsteps matching my pace. Not the casual shuffle of another Rust dweller heading nowhere in particular—the deliberate stride of people with a purpose. My purpose, specifically.
"Nyx Ashborne."
I didn't turn around. Different voices. These weren't Jace's boys—I'd just left them behind.
"Popular day for me, apparently."
"Boss wants to see you."
That stopped me cold. I turned around slowly, keeping my hands visible. Two new faces—both Dark Elves, both wearing the kind of functional gear that screamed professional muscle. The woman had ritual scars along her jawline and carried herself like someone who knew how to use the blade on her hip. The man looked like he bench-pressed shipping containers for fun.
"Which boss would that be?"
"Vex Ironscrap." The woman's voice was flat, businesslike. "And he's not asking."
Oh, fuck me sideways.
I could run. I knew these streets better than they did, knew which buildings had working fire escapes and which alleys led to maintenance tunnels. But running would only delay the inevitable, and it would piss them off in the process. Better to find out what I was really dealing with.
"Lead the way."
We walked deeper into the Rust, past the scavenger markets and tent cities, into the industrial graveyard where the really nasty business happened. The air tasted like metal and desperation, thick with the smell of rust and old oil. Broken machinery loomed around us like the bones of dead giants—cranes that would never lift again, conveyor systems frozen in place, the carcasses of manufacturing dreams that died when the jobs moved offshore.
The factory had been a textile plant once, back when people still made things in Neo-Cascadia instead of just moving money around. Now it was the Rust Runners' headquarters, complete with jury-rigged power lines and enough heat to keep the pipes from freezing. Not comfortable, but functional. Just like everything else in Vex's operation.
The main floor had been cleared out and sectioned off with shipping containers—offices, meeting rooms, sleeping quarters for whoever was important enough to rate indoor accommodation. Guards nodded to the woman and the man as we passed, but their eyes stayed on me. Professional attention, not casual curiosity.
We stopped at a container that had been converted into an office. The woman held out her hand.
"Phone."
I looked between her and the man. "Seriously?"
"Boss doesn't like recording devices." Her expression didn't change. "Phone."
I pulled my cracked device from my pocket and handed it over. She dropped it on the concrete and crushed it under her boot. The screen shattered, plastic casing splitting apart.
"You'll get a new one when you can afford it," she said, then opened the container door.
Actual furniture, clean lighting, even a coffee maker. Vex Ironscrap sat behind a metal desk that had probably been salvaged from some corporate bankruptcy sale, reviewing something on a tablet.
He looked up when we entered. Dark Elf like me, but older—maybe forty, with the kind of scars that came from surviving long enough to learn better. His left ear was missing the top third, and a burn scar ran from his temple to his jaw. But his eyes were sharp, calculating. This wasn't some street thug who'd gotten lucky. This was someone who'd built something and planned to keep it.
"Nyx Ashborne." He gestured to a chair across from his desk. "Sit."
I sat. Not because he told me to, but because standing would make me look nervous. "Vex. Been a while."
"Three months, to be exact." He set the tablet aside and leaned back in his chair. "Last time we talked, I gave you some friendly advice. Seems like you didn't take it."
"Honestly? I was hoping you'd forgotten about me."
"I don't forget debts." Vex pulled out a different tablet and turned it toward me. "Especially not ones this size."
The screen showed a financial ledger with my name at the top. The numbers made my stomach drop.
"Ten thousand creds," he said, watching my face. "That's what you owe the Rust Runners."
Ten thousand?!?!
I tried to keep my expression neutral, but that wasn't happening... my brain was screaming. Ten thousand creds was more money than I'd seen in my entire life. It was apartment deposits and medical bills and food for a year. It was impossible.
"That's a mistake."
"No mistake." Vex turned the tablet back toward himself. "You borrowed eight thousand from us six months ago. Interest and penalties bring it to ten. This is the second time I've had to bring you in for a personal conversation about it."
The second time. I remembered the first—three months ago, when two of his people had cornered me near the scrap yards. I'd been so focused on smaller debts that I'd managed to convince myself the big one would just... go away somehow. Magical thinking from someone who should have known better.
"Look, Vex—"
"No, you look." His voice stayed level, but something cold flickered in his eyes. "I run a business here. Professional operation, fair terms, reasonable expectations. But I can only extend so much courtesy before people start thinking I'm soft."
I forced myself to meet his gaze. "What kind of courtesy are we talking about?"
"Forty-five days. Five thousand creds." He leaned forward slightly. "Pay me half of what you owe, and we'll discuss terms for the rest. But if you walk out of here and I don't see significant progress in forty-five days, my next actions won't be so gracious."
Forty-five days. Five thousand creds. I did the math automatically—one hundred eleven creds per day, every day, for six weeks. On a perfect week, working every possible angle, I might clear two hundred creds. Most weeks I was lucky to see half that.
"And if I can't make that timeline?"
Vex stood up, signaling the end of our conversation. "Then we'll find out how much your organs are worth on the black market."
Well. At least he's honest about it.
"Forty-five days," I said, standing as well. "I'll be in touch."
"I'm sure you will be."
The woman and the man escorted me back to the entrance, but they didn't follow me beyond the factory gates. I walked back through the industrial maze alone, my boots echoing off concrete and metal, trying to process what had just happened.
Ten thousand creds. How the fuck had I let it get to ten thousand creds?
But I knew how. MetroCoin. The cryptocurrency that was supposed to change everything for people like us—urban workers, gig economy survivors, everyone the traditional banks had written off.
The ads had been everywhere in the Rust—plastered on bus stops, community boards, even spray-painted on abandoned buildings. "Digital money for digital lives," they'd said. "Take control of your financial future." The testimonials showed people who looked like me: Dark Elves with second-hand clothes and desperate eyes who'd supposedly made enough to move to the Grid, humans who'd escaped the factory closures and opened their own businesses.
"Banks won't give you loans? Be your own bank!"
That line had hooked me. I'd been turned down for credit so many times I'd stopped trying. But here was something different—a chance to get ahead instead of just surviving day to day.
I'd started small, investing the fifteen hundred creds that represented six months of careful saving. For two weeks, I'd watched the numbers climb on my cracked phone screen, refreshing the app obsessively. My investment doubled, then tripled. For the first time in my life, I felt rich.
That's when I made the mistake. Instead of cashing out, I'd borrowed five thousand more creds—promising myself I'd pay it back with the profits. The price kept climbing, and suddenly I wasn't just escaping poverty, I was looking at real wealth. Enough to move out of the Rust, get legitimate work, maybe even help other people still stuck down here.
Then I woke up one morning and checked my balance. Overnight, MetroCoin had dropped from forty creds to less than two. The big players had pumped the price up, waited for suckers like me to buy in, then dumped their holdings and walked away with our money. Classic scheme, older than dirt, but dressed up in enough technical jargon to seem legitimate.
Instead of cutting my losses, I'd borrowed more money trying to recover what I'd lost. Chasing good money after bad, doubling down on a losing bet. The kind of desperation move that turned a bad situation into a catastrophic one.
Now I was walking back through the Rust with forty-five days to find five thousand creds or end up as spare parts.
Five thousand creds in forty-five days. One hundred eleven creds per day.
I could steal maybe twenty creds a day if I was lucky and didn't get caught. Even if I considered sex work—something I'd managed to avoid so far—that might bring in fifty to one hundred creds on a good night, assuming I could find clients and safe places to work. Even if I could somehow manage one hundred creds per day—which was optimistic as hell—I'd still fall short.
The math didn't work. No matter how I calculated it, no matter what combination of theft, desperate measures, odd jobs, and schemes I put together, I couldn't reach five thousand creds in six weeks. Not without getting arrested, beaten, or killed in the process.
Oh, and five hundred to that douchebag Jace on top of it.
I needed a miracle. Or I needed to find something that paid more money than anything I'd ever done before.
Forty-five days to live. Better make them count.