Chapter 254: The Wrong Card.
Mrs. Rivers came through the doors completely naked and entirely unbothered by it, the way she had been the first time I met her. Ten ability users followed close behind, fanning out near the entrance into a deliberate, intimidating formation.
She crossed the room alone and sank gracefully onto the sofa opposite us, her breasts settling with the motion, legs parting slightly before she adjusted her posture.
"Look who it is." Her eyes found me first. "Abram. Nice seeing you again."
"Nice seeing you too, Mrs. Rivers."
"Lisa." She turned to Melissa, the shortening of the name carrying deliberate weight. "A pleasure that you’ve finally decided to visit." Her smile stayed perfectly in place. "And you’ve come with a young man who happened to be a close friend of my late son."
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Rivers," Melissa said.
"You see this young man, Lisa." Mrs. Rivers gestured toward me, her bare arm moving fluidly. "He arrived in this house at the exact moment I was considering your proposal. I was ready to move against CGI entirely. And he sat where he’s sitting now and gave me a reason to believe in Bala again."
Melissa smiled politely and uncrossed her legs, then crossed them the other way, the smooth skin of her thighs catching the light.
Mrs. Rivers turned back to me, and the warmth in her expression thinned noticeably.
"Did you know," she said, "that the people you’re working for now are the same people who were working against you and Bala? The people who were in this house making offers while he was still alive?" She let the words settle heavily between us. "And you’re trusting them."
"I work for what’s best for these walls," I said.
She smiled at that, a slow, knowing curve of her lips.
And she was right. I knew exactly what this government was. I knew what Melissa was sitting beside me for. Being inside it was the only position from which I could reach the people I needed to reach—and that meant sitting in rooms like this one, letting people tell me truths they thought were revelations.
"Those are my boys and girls," Mrs. Rivers said, glancing toward the guards at the door. "Are you comfortable with them in the room, or should I send them out?"
"We’re comfortable," Melissa said.
"No, you’re not." Mrs. Rivers didn’t even look back. "OUT."
The guards filed out silently and pulled the doors shut behind them. The three of us were left alone in the room full of photographs.
Mrs. Rivers shifted, arranging her naked body more comfortably in the chair, and turned her full attention back to me.
"Where’s the blonde girl you came with last time?"
"On another assignment today."
"Shame. I liked her." The pleasantness dropped away entirely. "Five days ago the two of you were working toward opposite ends. One of you was building a government and one of you was trying to bring it down. Today you’re sitting on my furniture with your bare asses on my upholstery." She looked slowly between us. "What exactly united you?"
"That’s why we’re here," Melissa said.
"Yes." Mrs. Rivers nodded slowly, her expression hardening. "That’s exactly why I’ve cut to the chase."
"We’re aiming for something beyond these walls," Melissa said. "That’s the objective. We move past them."
"Why?" Mrs. Rivers gave a small, sharp laugh. "I’d call that greed. We don’t have real life inside these walls—not properly, not for everyone. So why reach for what’s outside?" She let the challenge hang in the air. "Isn’t that biting off more than you can chew?"
"Not really." Melissa remained perfectly still, her breasts steady with each measured breath. "It’s expanding a very small world. Have you never felt trapped in here?"
"No." No flinch. No hesitation.
"Then think of it differently." Melissa shifted slightly on the sofa. "It isn’t biting off something too big. It’s growing more teeth so we can bite everything."
Mrs. Rivers laughed again, the sound rich and genuine.
"There’s nothing out there worth saving," she said. "And even if there were, the outside has always taken more from us than it has given. That equation hasn’t changed in fifty years."
"You’re half right," Melissa replied.
"Mm." Mrs. Rivers held her gaze.
Now. Jump in. We have her.
Melissa’s voice arrived directly inside my skull—clear, unannounced, her mouth never moving. I didn’t react.
"There is life outside," I said.
Mrs. Rivers turned to me fully. "Is there?"
"I’ve seen it myself. The infection is weakening. There are places out there beginning to rebuild—communities forming, people organizing." I held her eyes without wavering. "And they’ll finish rebuilding eventually, with us or without us. If they do it alone, without a single hand extended from these walls, then what we’ll have out there is an enemy. When that day comes we won’t be the strong ones. We’ll be outnumbered, and we’ll be the people who watched."
Mrs. Rivers sighed. Something in her posture softened, her shoulders easing as she leaned back.
"Do you understand that everything I do is for these walls," she said quietly. "Everything. I have never once thought about myself in any of it."
"Yes," Melissa said. "Which is exactly why we’re sitting in your house. Because the walls need you, ma’am. Not against us. With us."
Mrs. Rivers looked up at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling.
"If everyone becomes an ability user," Melissa pressed, giving her no room to retreat, "we can move past the walls. All of us. We can make the world outside something worth living in."
Bring in her son.
I hesitated for half a second.
"It’s what Speed would have wanted," I said.
Her face changed. I watched it happen in real time—the subtle crack in her composure, the way her lips parted. A single tear slipped down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away.
"Are you sure?" Her voice trembled, a powerful woman suddenly reconsidering the entire path she’d been running down.
"Yes. Speed was a close friend of mine. I know what he wanted."
"Fuck you."
The voice cut across the room from the side.
Bagins. Standing there. Neither of us had noticed him slip back in—both of us too deep in the moment.
"Bagins." Mrs. Rivers’ voice dropped, trying to regain control.
"Don’t listen to him." He was already shouting. "Abram is an outsider. He was never close to Speed. He was my student at Hogsby one month ago. One month. He walked through the life layer with nothing and he’s sitting in your house telling you what your son wanted."
Mrs. Rivers turned to me. Doubt was already spreading across her face like cracks in glass.
"Is that true?"
"I have proof," Bagins said. "Records. I can pull them right now."
"SHUT UP." She cut him off sharply without looking away from me. "Is it true?"
I looked at Bagins, at the burning passion in his eyes, at the savage satisfaction of a man who had waited a long time for exactly this moment.
"Yes," I said.
We’re finished, Melissa said inside my head.