Hayamei looked out the window at the streetlight flickering.
"No," she said. "I'm becoming the thing I needed back when I had no one."
⸻
That night, she drew up a new plan.
Marked new escape routes. Set two traps.
Then she walked into Na'Nami's room, curled beside her in bed, and whispered:
"You're gonna see me fight soon, baby. But I need you to remember... queens don't start wars."
Na'Nami stirred. "What do they do then?"
Hayamei kissed her forehead.
"They finish them." The town was silent the next morning—but not asleep.
Hayamei could feel it, thick in the air like humidity before a storm. The kind of silence that watches from rooftops, that loads clips behind curtains.
She sat on the back steps of the house, cleaning a pistol she hadn't touched in two years. The one she'd used the night her father's men raided her first safehouse. The barrel still had a scratch where she'd dropped it diving over Na'Nami's crib.
Ghost stepped outside with a cup of coffee.
"They gonna hit us today?" he asked.
Hayamei didn't look up. "They'll wait. Aria's return will slow them down. Zora's not reckless—she likes her pieces scared before she plays them."
"You think Aria makes it back to them?"
"She'll make it. I didn't cut her loose to be brave. I cut her loose to be bait."
⸻
The next move was quiet.
Hayamei sent Monroe a signal through their burner network—"activate candlelight."
It was a trigger phrase. One they hadn't used since she was pregnant with Na'Nami. It meant: go dark, go deep, and watch every damn thing.
By nightfall, she had a ping.
Three burner phones went active in a 30-mile radius. All had the same frequency hop pattern—a style Zora used in the past. Ghost traced the towers.
One phone was on the move. Two were stationary.
Hayamei's fingers tightened on the map.
"Ghost," she said. "I think we found their ghost nest."
⸻
They moved fast.
No guns. No backup. Just the two of them in the dark with blades and fists.
The address Monroe flagged was a half-renovated apartment above an old tattoo shop. Nobody on the lease. Electricity rerouted through the barber shop next door.
They didn't knock.
Ghost kicked the door in while Hayamei moved like a storm behind him.
Inside, there was a girl no older than seventeen—typing on a laptop, headphones in, completely unaware.
Hayamei yanked the headphones off her. The girl screamed, reached for something—
Ghost already had her pinned.
"Tell me who sent you," Hayamei said, cold and sharp.
The girl stammered. "I—I was paid to run a frequency boost. Said it was a test. Just tech work, I swear—"
Hayamei noticed the screen behind her: live surveillance footage.
Of Na'Nami's school playground.
Hayamei's voice turned lethal. "Who gave you this feed?"
The girl trembled. "I never saw a face. It was all through a modded app—same username every time: redsteps."
Hayamei froze.
Zora's old alias.
⸻
They shut the place down within twenty minutes.
Hayamei took the hard drives.
Ghost wiped every trace of their prints.
Before leaving, Hayamei turned to the girl, who still sat on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees.
"If I ever see a lens pointed at my daughter again," she said, "I won't take the laptop. I'll take your hands."
⸻
Back home, Hayamei studied the drive.
Ghost leaned over her shoulder, watching her eyes move like radar.
"What you seeing?" he asked.
"I'm seeing patterns," she said. "Routes. Testing behavior. They weren't just watching Na'Nami. They were watching how I respond. Where I stand when I pick her up. Whether I carry. Who I speak to at the gate."
"Military-level recon."
"Zora-level obsession."
⸻
That night, they didn't sleep.
They sat on the couch in silence, the moon bleeding in through the window.
Na'Nami was asleep upstairs with three locks on her door and a knife under her pillow—just like her mama taught her.
Ghost lit a cigarette and didn't say a word for five whole minutes.
Then: "You ready to burn them?"
Hayamei looked at him like the fire was already behind her eyes.
"I been ready. But now?" She leaned forward, voice low and deadly. "Now I'm done playing."
⸻
The next morning, she called her six.
Not for another meeting.
Not for defense.
This time, they met in the church for a briefing.
A mission.
"We're hitting their side house," she said. "The one forty minutes out. Tonight."
Ghost passed out copies of the blueprints.
Hayamei pointed to the southwest exit.
"This is where the power hits. We cut it first. Then I go in through the service line. Ghost comes from the back. Y'all stay outside, ready to light the whole place up if I don't come out in fifteen."
Someone raised a hand. "What's the end goal?"
Hayamei stared them all down.
"I want a body. I want a name. And I want them to feel it."
⸻
Later that night, before she left, Na'Nami came downstairs in her pajamas and hugged her mama tight around the waist.
"You're gonna win, right?"
Hayamei bent down, kissed her cheek.
"I already did, baby," she said. "You breathing is the win. Everything else is just cleanup."
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