Predator Code (Tales from Wildhearth #1)

Chapter 11 - Home Is Where They Ripped My Heart Out

She needed to sleep.

The rumble of the tram carrier was enough to keep her alert as it swept her away from her district—and home—but now that the immediate danger had passed, sheer exhaustion finally fell over her like a net.

She glanced at the solarclock that glowed innocently above the carriage door. A little after noonfive, not long until darkness would begin to descend over the city. Jett scrubbed a paw against her eyes, leaving a red-rimmed, glassy stare behind as she looked up. A route map on the side of the carriage showed a live tracker of their progress with a pulsing blue dot moving down the stations in the outer district line.

Her stop was finally coming up: Carlikane, a district in the middle of the eighth spiral, several miles from Palharr. Over a dozen spirals coiled out from Wildhearth's centre, the narrow apex of the Silk unfurling into a sprawl towards the outskirts. Jett tried to dredge back into her sleep-deprived brain to remember the place. She'd visited a handful of times, not so often that the wolfkin would be swiftly drawn there, but often enough to know it was a good place to blend in.

Hiking the bag up across her shoulder, she blinked several times and stepped towards the door as the low gong of the station approach sounded. Bodies shuffled around her, blameless strangers, but still filling her with an unshakable sense of persecution. She tensed, resisting the urge to lash out, taking slow breaths to stay calm. Exhaustion was beginning to blunt her normally sharp mind, filling her with a paranoid edge.

When did she last sleep?

Not long now, she told herself. She just needed to get to a warrenary and rent a bed. It would take time for the wolfkin to figure out what she might have done, and by then, her plans would be well in motion.

She stepped off, swept along like a piece of flotsam. Shoulders hunched, claws digging into the strap of the bag slung across her shoulder, Jett kept her head down and just concentrated on keeping her feet. The cool evening air was thick with smells and sounds that made her head swim, unable to process the sensory onslaught properly right now. Bodies jostled her as people peeled off to the left and right. She slouched along—a forlorn, directionless figure in the encroaching twilight.

The crowds eventually thinned out, giving Jett space to think, the effort making a band of pain throb behind her eyes. A warrenary, she reminded herself after a moment. Sleep came first—everything else could be dealt with later.

Slouching through the Carlikane District's tightly winding streets, she made her way to what locals called the Basin—a crater-like depression where a host of bars, hotels, warrenaries, and brawl pits had been erected. As she walked, she tried to think of a place she could stay, but the memories wouldn't come. She was too tired. Eventually, she gave up and asked some of the locals. There were a handful of suggestions, but one place seemed to top the list, so her decision was made.

After following the advice of Carlikane's citizens, she emerged from a broad connecting street to see the Basin open out before her, and it certainly lived up to the name. It was a sunken crater more than a hundred yards across, with buildings jammed up the edges, spilling down towards a clearing where she could see the burning lights of brawl pits. The establishment she'd been directed to was just off that central hub.

She trudged her way down towards it, hoping to get to her destination before the full nighttime crowds could arrive. In her current state, Jett wasn't sure she could deal with getting caught up in the rush of revellers without shedding blood.

As it happened, she was just ahead of the after-work deluge, hearing and feeling the swell of life slowly closing in on her from a distance. Making her way through tight alleys, she came upon the warrenary the locals had recommended, situated on the corner of a small plaza, jostling for room with the other warrenaries, residential buildings, and a rather quaint-looking cafe at the base of a conical den stack. Her destination was an unremarkable pillar of ceramic brickwork carved into a standing cuboid, fat enough to enclose hundreds of rooms with ease.