Static and Smoke
The fence line behind the Castellano Street houses runs for six blocks, chain-link gone soft with rust, and Ryder counts his steps against it the way his father used to count seconds between lightning and thunder. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. He doesn't believe in luck, not anymore, but he believes in rhythm, in the body knowing what the mind won't say out loud.
"You're doing the thing," Jade whispers behind him. "The counting thing."
"I'm not doing a thing."
"Your lips are moving, Ryder."
He clamps his jaw shut and keeps walking. The night air smells like cut grass and somebody's sprinkler system, so different from the exhaust-and-garbage perfume of their own six blocks that it feels like trespassing just to breathe it. Which, he supposes, it is.
Behind Jade, Alex hums something tuneless and bouncy, hands jammed deep in a jacket two sizes too big, and Charlie brings up the rear with the tablet cradled against their chest like a kid holding a stray cat they aren't sure they're allowed to keep.
"House is clear," Charlie says, not for the first time. "I've been pinging the thermal feed for forty minutes. No heat signatures. No cars in the drive since Tuesday. Owners are at some…