Rising From Ruin: The Discarded Heiress

Before she left, Dejah paused. The attic was cluttered with the debris of the Kensington family's past. Old chairs, broken lamps. In the corner, sticking out of a box of moth-eaten coats, was a teddy bear.

It was missing an eye. The stuffing was coming out of its stomach.

It was hers. Or it had been, when she was five. Jenna had taken it one day, demanding it because she was "sad." Dejah found it a week later in the trash, cut to pieces with scissors.

She picked it up. She didn't feel sadness. She felt a cold, hard resolve. She put the bear back.

Voices drifted up through the floorboards. The insulation in the attic was non-existent, turning the floor into a diaphragm that amplified the sounds from the master bedroom below.

Dejah lay on the floor, pressing her ear to the wood. Her hearing focused, filtering out the hum of the pipes.

"...can't touch her now," Kathryn was saying, her voice shrill. "Not with Vanderbilt sniffing around. If she disappears into surgery and something goes wrong, he'll ask questions."

"We need the money, Kathryn!" That was Dejah's father-her adoptive father-Robert. "The stocks are tanking. If we don't get the Sterling investment, we lose the house."

"I know!" Kathryn snapped. "That's why tomorrow is crucial. Elder Sterling is coming. He's obsessed with health. We show him a happy, healthy family. We charm him. Once the check clears, we deal with Dejah. Vanderbilt will get bored eventually. Men like him always do."

Sterling.

Dejah's mind accessed the database. Elder Sterling. Net worth: 4 billion. Collector of antiquities. Medical history: Chronic heart condition, multiple bypasses.

A plan formed. It was elegant. It was dangerous.

She stood up. She checked her pockets. She had the wooden carving from Casimir (for radiation stability) and a small tin case. Inside the case were six special alloy needles. She had stolen them from a medical supply shipment years ago. They weren't silver, but a high-tensile titanium blend, perfect for deep tissue penetration.

She climbed out the skylight. The roof tiles were slippery with frost. She moved like a shadow, distributing her weight on the balls of her feet to avoid creaking. She reached the drainage pipe and slid down, wrapping her legs around the metal.

She landed in the flowerbed, avoiding the motion sensors she had mapped out years ago. She didn't vault the wall-her knees wouldn't take the impact. Instead, she used a stack of old pallets to climb over, moving methodically.

She walked for two miles to the subway station. She pulled a stash of cash-fifty dollars in small bills-from the lining of her shoe. It was her emergency fund, saved penny by penny over a decade.

The train to Queens was empty except for a few drunks. One of them, a man with a scarred face, leered at her. She stared back, her face hidden in the shadow of a baseball cap. She let a little bit of the "Killing Intent" leak out. He looked away, muttering.

She got off at a stop near an industrial park. She walked to a laundromat that had a "Closed" sign permanently taped to the window.

She walked to the back, to a large commercial dryer that was out of order. She tapped a rhythm on the metal side: tap-tap-pause-tap-tap-tap.

The dryer swung open. It was a door.

She ducked through.

Stairs led down into the earth. The air grew hot and thick. The sound of heavy bass thumped in her chest.

The Bazaar.

It was a cavernous underground space, an old prohibition-era smuggling tunnel turned into a black market. Stalls lined the walls, selling everything from illegal firearms to endangered species.

She pulled her cap lower. She needed money. Fast.

She walked toward the "Junk" sector.

Up on a metal catwalk overlooking the market, a man in a tailored suit swirled a glass of whiskey. Casimir Vanderbilt looked down at the chaos below.

"You're obsessed," Nate said, nursing his swollen nose.

"I'm curious," Casimir corrected. He pointed down. "Look. That kid. The way he walks."