(TAYLOR HEBERT) CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

By the time Taylor stepped into ABB territory, she was aware of how exposed she must have looked.

No costume, no attempt at concealment, nothing to separate her from any other girl walking the street except for the watch on her wrist and the way she carried herself. It drew eyes. People did not stare outright, and most looked away quickly when she glanced in their direction, yet their attention stayed on her all the same as she moved deeper into streets she had no real reason to be in.

It did not take long for someone to approach her.

He was not subtle about it. One moment she was walking, the next there was a man stepping into her path, hands folded across his chest. There were others nearby, she realized a second later, easy to miss at a glance because she was positioned just far enough away to seem incidental if you did not know what to look for.

“You’re lost,” he said, not unkindly, though there was no warmth in it either.

Taylor shook her head. “No. I’m here for a reason.”

That earned her a longer look, one that moved from her face to her clothes and back to her face.

“Yeah?” he said. “And what reason is that?”

“I want to speak to Lung.”

The change was not dramatic. No one reached for a weapon, no one raised their voice, but something in the air shifted all the same. The man in front of her straightened slightly, and she became more aware of the others at the edges of her vision, of the way their attention sharpened.

“You don’t just walk up and ask for that,” he said.

“I’m not just anyone,” Taylor replied, and even to her own ears the words carried an authority she had not quite intended.

He did not look impressed.

“Right,” he said. “And who exactly are you supposed to be?”

Taylor hesitated, only for a second, then said it.

“I’m the one who drove off the Simurgh.”

Silence followed, heavier this time, edged with something that might have been disbelief or irritation. The man’s expression did not change much, but there was an intense look in his eyes, the kind that suggested he was reassessing what he had already noticed rather than seeing anything new.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “And I’m—”

Before he could finish, Taylor lifted her wrist.

The motion was small, but intentional rather than dramatic, drawing his attention to the watch. The watch caught the light, alien in a way that was difficult to define, its surface smooth and wrong in a that did not belong to anything built by human hands.

That was enough.

His gaze fixed on it, lingering a moment longer than necessary before returning to her face. Something in his bearing had shifted again, this time becoming less dismissive and more cautious.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” he said, though the certainty in his voice had faded.

“No,” Taylor agreed. “It doesn’t. But if you think I’m lying, you can take me to him and find out.”

That was the part that mattered. If she had been bluffing, she would not have said that. If she had just been looking for attention or trying to scare them, she would have pushed harder, talked more, and tried to sell it. Instead, she stood there and waited.

The man studied her, considering something she could not see, and for a moment she had the distinct impression that this was not the first time someone had tried to claim something they were not.

He finally exhaled through his nose, jerking his head slightly.

“Fine,” he said, the decision made. “You want to meet him, you’ll meet him.”

It was not an agreement so much as a decision.

They did not treat her like an honored guest after that, but they did not dismiss her either. Someone fell into step behind her, another ahead, and just like that she found herself being escorted deeper into ABB territory, through streets that grew quieter the further they went, people stepping aside without needing to be told.

As they walked, Taylor found herself back on that line of thought. 

How many had tried this?

How many had come forward with wild claims, with something to prove, or something to gain, walking in with confidence they believed was justified? How many had stood where she stood now and believed, even for a moment, that they could walk up to someone like Lung and be taken seriously?

And how many of them had left? Or hadn’t?

The thought sat uncomfortably in the back of her mind, but she did not dwell on it.

She had something they did not.

The building they eventually stopped at did not look particularly impressive from the outside. It was just another apartment block, worn in the way most of the city seemed to be, its exterior marked by time and neglect. There was nothing about it that announced what it housed, nothing that warned anyone away.

Inside, the difference was immediate.

People moved with care here. Voices dipped as she passed, each conversation lowering just enough that, taken together, the pattern became impossible to miss. Eyes followed her, some openly, others from the corners of vision, and there was something in those looks that made her shoulders tighten without her quite meaning to.

Fear, she thought at first.

But it was not only that.

There was respect there as well, though it seemed more so due to the recognition of power than anything close to admiration. The kind that came from someone who had taken a place for himself and held it long enough that no one here thought to challenge it anymore.

She understood, then, without needing to see Lung, the kind of man he was. The atmosphere told her enough. 

And as the door at the end of the hallway came into view, as the man in front of her slowed and reached for the handle, Taylor felt something tighten in her chest that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the realization of what she had walked into.

Maybe she should have thought this through more.