The door creaks open. A man walks in, dragging something—no, someone—by the arm. Small. Human. A girl.

  Aster’s world narrows to a pinprick.

  She can’t be older than ten. Her clothes are ripped, her lip split, and she’s crying silently—the kind of crying that doesn’t ask for help anymore. Just endurance.

  But that’s not what holds Aster’s focus. He can feel it.

  That familiar, acid-coiled taste in the air.

  The same crushing, coiling wrongness he’s felt for as long as he can remember.

  A Void Wyrm.

  His heart stops. Not metaphorically. It skips. Trips. Tries to catch itself.

  There’s a wyrm inside her.

  Matter once showed Aster how to see into the Astral Plane while still tethered, and he releases the sight now, viewing her without the Material Filter. The air around her warps like a dying star. Threads of karma coil and snap around her spirit like frayed wires. Every wrong turn she’s ever taken—he can feel it, woven into her. Her ending up here isn’t a coincidence. This isn’t bad luck.

  This is engineering. The wyrm’s influence threading through her fate like poison lace, pushing her down every wrong street, every dark corner, until she lands here. Like him.

  And suddenly, the entire room blurs.

  Because he’s looking at himself.

  Ten years old. No shoes. Starving. Cold. Left behind in a world that didn’t want him.

  She has no Matter waiting in the wings, weaving karma into her fate until he can save her. No one to pull her out.

  And Frikkie?

  He barely even looks at her.

  “New stock,” he says, almost bored. “This one’s got pedigree. Parents were moral crusaders. Went bankrupt, got unlucky, probably stepped on the wrong political toe. Now she’s mine.”

  Aster can’t breathe.

  He has the money. He can walk out. Live. Train. Fulfill Matter’s plans. Build his strength.

  And leave her here to rot.

  He looks at her again.

  And something in him cracks.

  All those years running, surviving, clawing for inches—and now, for once, he has a choice. Not between survival and death, but between surviving alone… and making sure someone else doesn’t have to.

  His hands shake.

  No one’s coming for her.

  His throat clenches.

  No Matter. No miracles.

  His heart pounds.

  But there’s me.

  The vow doesn’t need words. It carves itself into him like a brand.

  He will not let her vanish. Even if it costs him everything. Even if it buries him in debt again. Even if it ruins every hope he has of peace. Because what’s the point of being saved if he can’t be someone else’s reason to live?

  He stands slowly.

  Frikkie arches an eyebrow. “Finally found your voice?”

  “I’ll pay,” Aster says, voice low, steady. “The R1.8 million. Now.”

  Frikkie smiles wide. “That’s my boy.”

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  Aster doesn’t blink. “But I want the girl too.”

  The grin falters.

  “You’ll get R1.8 now. I’ll give you R700 thousand for her. One week.”

  Frikkie tilts his head. “You want to buy her?”

  “No. I want to unwrite her sentence.”

  Frikkie lets out a breathless chuckle. “You really are something else, kid.”

  He stands, walks over to the girl, and kneels beside her like a parody of empathy. “This one’s special. You know that, right? Anathi’s her name. Her parents? Good people.” He chuckles to himself. “Or were, at least. Very high-up political figure. But too good. Made all the wrong enemies in their lives. Now that they’re gone, I’m sure I could find one or two of those they crossed who’d want some revenge.”

  He looks back at Aster, expression sharpening. “I was gonna rent her out by the hour. First to the people who hated her family. Then… whoever. You know how it is. The city has needs.”

  Aster doesn’t respond. His nails dig into his palm until he feels the skin break.

  “The price for her is R1.2 million,” Frikkie says flatly. “Non-negotiable.”

  Aster looks at the girl.

  At the thing inside her.

  Then back at Frikkie, face neutral, tone tense. “Okay. Let’s talk numbers.”

  Frikkie’s eyes narrow.

  “I’ll pay the R1.8 million,” Aster says. “Now. Full amount. Bond transfers—I can do it over my phone. You walk us out that door. No goons. No bruises. No follow-up threats.”

  Frikkie grins like a man already planning a follow-up threat.

  “Alright,” he says slowly. “And what about the girl?”

  Aster doesn’t look at her. Not directly. “R1.2 million. One week. Same terms. But she walks with me now.”

  Frikkie lets out a low whistle, then leans back in his chair, fingers tapping a rhythm on the desk like he’s weighing the beat of Aster’s heartbeat against the weight of the potential payout.

  “You’re making a lot of promises, boy.”

  “I’ve already missed a payment,” Aster replies. “You could’ve sold me for parts. You didn’t. That means you think I’m more valuable alive. And you’re right. But you also know my credit’s shit. So I’ll need the bank to front me the second loan. That’s monthly payments. Interest. Long-term return. Not one you’d need to follow up on. You’ll have your lump sum and can go ruin other people’s lives instead.”

  Frikkie’s grin widens into a full-blown leer. “You’ll be paying it back for years.”

  Aster shrugs. “You want the deal or not?”

  The man sits in silence for another moment, then pushes back from the desk and stands.

  He extends a hand. “One week. You miss a payment… I own both of you.”

  Aster rises, takes the hand, and shakes it once.

  “Deal.”

  Frikkie nods to the brute still holding the girl. “Let her go.”

  She stumbles as the grip around her collar vanishes, wide-eyed and trembling. Aster reaches for her before he thinks better of it and steadies her by the arm.

  She doesn’t flinch.

  She doesn’t cry.

  She just stares up at him like he’s broken the laws of physics.

  The drive home feels carved from glass—brittle, silent, one pothole away from shattering.

  Aster sits in the passenger seat, jaw clenched, every part of his body braced like Frikkie’s piece-of-junk car might implode on sheer tension alone. The air inside feels stale, like it’s been filtered through every bad decision Aster’s ever made. Frikkie drives one-handed, the other draped casually across the wheel like he thinks he’s in a music video, not chauffeuring two human beings he’s just legally extorted. His smirk hasn’t left since they pulled away from the warehouse.

  No words. He doesn’t need them. His presence says everything: You still owe me. You’ll always owe me.

  In the back seat, Anathi sits small and still, her back pressed against the door, as if sheer physics could get her further from the men in front. She doesn’t cry. Doesn’t fidget. Just sits there with her hands clamped together in her lap, fingers twitching faintly—little spasms of terror she hasn’t yet learned to suppress.

  Aster risks a glance in the rearview mirror. Their eyes don’t meet. She doesn’t look up once. He doesn’t blame her. He sure as hell doesn’t look at Frikkie either.

  He’s not worried about Frikkie knowing where he lives. The man has eyes everywhere, but he’s no mastermind. He’s a tick. A boil on the ass of the universe. Compared to everything Aster’s seen in the last forty-eight hours—Void parasites, soul rituals, sentient shrubs and fountains that speak twelve languages and have opinions on morality—Frikkie is the least of his problems.

  But that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous.