"You met Callighan?!"

Sydney said it like I’d just told her I’d bumped into a celebrity at the end of the world. Christopher’s head had come up sharply. Rachel had gone very still as well surprised.

And Lucy who had been sitting silently until now looked just as thrown as the rest of them.

"Yeah," I said. "When I was going after Penny and caught up to her, she’d been heading back toward the hotel. I heard his men shouting his name and then he just... walked out. Calm as anything."

"Okay but what does he look like?" Sydney asked, leaning forward slightly. "Like, genuinely, is he the full apocalyptic villain? Does he have the coat and the gravelly voice and all of it?"

Christopher stared at her. "That’s your follow-up question."

"I’m just asking what everyone else is thinking," she said, completely unapologetic.

"He looked like a former marine," I said, cutting across it before this derailed entirely. "Composed. Controlled. Nothing like the way Marlon described him, not the version I was expecting based on that."

"Marlon?" Christopher’s eyebrows went up. "The Boardwalk leader? Wait, they knew each other? Before all this?"

"Yeah," I said. "It goes back further than you’d think."

I laid it out as concisely as I could.

Callighan starting out as a junior under Marlon, learning from him, being trusted by him. And then using that trust as cover to run illegal shipments on the side, skimming money, building something separate and hidden for months before Marlon finally caught the thread of it and pulled until the whole thing unraveled. Marlon had gone to the police. Callighan had gone to prison. And then the Infected arrived and the walls of the world came down and Callighan had walked out of that cell along with everyone else locked up in there, including a prison guard named Gaspar, who’d apparently seen an opportunity in the chaos and taken it the same way Callighan had.

By the time I finished, the room was quiet.

Everyone processing it in their own way.

"Okay," Sydney said after a moment. "I’m not saying this isn’t serious, but, that storyline? That could be a full season of television. Easy."

"A helpful observation, Sydney, thank you," Christopher said.

"I’m just saying someone should write it down—"

"Moving on," I said. "Bottom line is Callighan is here because of Marlon. That’s the root of all of this. Personal."

"All of this—" Rachel gestured vaguely at the walls around us, at everything the gesture implied, "—is because of a grudge?" She looked really dumbfounded. "People are dying because of a grudge?"

"He apparently offered to settle it cleanly at first, hand Marlon over and the rest of the Boardwalk walks away," I said. "Everyone refused. So it became a siege instead. And honestly, I don’t think anyone there fully trusts that Callighan would actually leave them alone even if they gave him what he wanted. Not with some of the people he’s running with."

"You can say that again," Christopher muttered, and glanced pointedly at Lucy.

Lucy returned the look with a glare that had enough edge in it to suggest the hours since I’d left hadn’t exactly been peaceful between those two.

Yeah. I’d been gone maybe half a day and things had already developed their own texture in this room. I wasn’t sure I wanted the full rundown.

"Regardless," I said, pulling the room’s attention back, "I have good news." I let a small smile come through because after everything, it felt earned. "I spoke with Callighan and he agreed to the exchange. Lucy for Mei."

The silence that followed was a different kind than before.

Rachel’s eyes widened immediately before a smile bloomed to her face.

"Really?"

"Really," I said. "Tomorrow, noon. I meet him in front of the hotel. If he’s the man he says he is, Mei comes home."

"It could be a trap," Christopher said immediately.

He wasn’t trying to be pessimistic but he was being practical and he was right.

"Yeah, I know," I said. "And my impression of Callighan, honestly, he struck me as someone who actually means what he says. But impressions aren’t guarantees and I’m not walking in there banking on one man’s word alone. Gaspar could be there. It could be built to look like a handoff and turn into something else entirely the second we’re in range." I shook my head. "I’m not taking risks with this one."

"So we’re all going?" Sydney asked.

I looked at her and nodded.

She waited, watching my face, and then her expression shifted into something surprised. "Okay, hold on. I was fully prepared for the whole ’stay here, I’ll handle it alone, don’t worry about me’ routine. I had a whole counter-argument prepared."

"I had mine ready too," Christopher said.

I felt my face do something slightly uncomfortable. "I mean, I can’t do this alone, realistically. If it goes wrong and Mei’s actually there, we need to be ready to move fast." I cleared my throat. "So yes. We go together."

"Personal growth," Sydney said solemnly, pressing a hand briefly to her chest.

"Rachel," I said, redirecting before Sydney could enjoy herself further, "when I say everyone, I mean you, me, Christopher, Sydney." I paused. "And I was thinking Cindy as well."

Rachel tilted her head slightly, reading the pause I’d put after Cindy’s name. "Cindy? You sure about that?"

"Because," I said, "she woke up. Her ability I mean."

Sydney’s entire body language changed in a second. She crossed the distance between us in two quick steps.

"She what?" Her eyes almost glowed with excitation and thrill. "What ability? What did she get? Is it like mine? Is it stronger? What happened? When? Why didn’t you lead with that?!"

"I’ll explain that part later," I said, glancing sideways at Lucy with enough weight in the look that Sydney caught it immediately and dialed back.

Lucy was going back to Callighan tomorrow. Whatever she heard between now and then would travel with her, and I wasn’t about to hand over a detailed breakdown of what we were capable of. That said, I’d been deliberate about dropping hints in front of her. Letting her know, without spelling it out, that there were several of us carrying abilities. Enough for her to bring that back to Callighan and plant the thought. Enough to make him think twice if he was already running calculations about what came after the exchange.

"Anyway," I said, steering things forward, "it’ll be five of us tomorrow."

"Works for me," Christopher said, and he made a point of not looking at Lucy when he added, "I am very much looking forward to getting rid of her." He let his eyes slide briefly to Penny. "What about this one, though? She’s not part of the deal."

"She stays here," I said. "Callighan didn’t ask for her back, and..." I trailed off for a second, looking at Penny. She had her gaze dropped to the floor, her shoulders drawn in, her complexion quite pale. "She’s been through a lot. Gaspar’s work."

Nobody needed me to say more than that. They looked at her and understood.

"She still needs watching, though," I added. "She could be dangerous even now, even calmed down, we don’t fully know what Gaspar left in her."

"Right, but here’s the problem," Sydney said, tilting her head. "Tomorrow we’re all walking out of here. You’re not seriously thinking of leaving Rebecca on watch duty for that."

"God, no," Christopher said immediately, his expression making it very clear that the image that had just appeared in his head was not a good one. "Absolutely not. That’s a disaster scenario."

He wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t even considered Rebecca for it but now that it was said out loud, the picture assembled itself quickly and it was not reassuring. Rebecca, alone, watching over a woman with Symbiote-given abilities, with a chip on her shoulder and a point to prove.

Yeah. No.

"What about Kunta?" I said, the thought landing as I said her name.

Rachel opened her mouth immediately. "Ryan, you can’t seriously expect her to—"

"Hold on, have you already made her your second little sister?" Sydney cut in, looking at Rachel. "That was fast even for you."

"She’s not ready for that kind of responsibility," Rachel said firmly, ignoring the comment.

"She’s not wrong," Sydney admitted, switching tracks without missing a beat. "That girl and Rebecca left alone together? They’d probably either become best friends or burn the whole place down. Maybe both."

"Sydney, you’re being mean for no reason," Rachel said.

"I’m being accurate, Rachel, those are different things."

"Alright," I said, stepping into it before this ran another three minutes. "I wasn’t thinking of Kunta herself when I said her name. I was thinking about Sonny."

The room shifted.

Sydney blinked. Christopher’s expression went from skeptical to thoughtful in the space of about a second. And Rachel who had seen firsthand what Sonny was actually capable of when the situation called for it, went quiet in a way that meant she was already agreeing.

"Yeah," she said slowly, nodding. "That could actually work."

"Talk to Kunta about it," I said. "She’ll be more willing to get on board if it comes from you. Sonny responds to her and Kunta seems to trust you more than any of us."

Rachel nodded again, and I could see her already thinking through how that conversation would go.

I gestured for the others to follow me and stepped out of the room, moving far enough down the hall that our voices wouldn’t carry back through the door to Lucy and Penny. When we’d all shifted out, I turned around and looked at them.

"One more thing," I said. "I’m going to be staying at the Boardwalk for the next week."

Sydney’s reaction was the fastest. "What?"

"Marlon’s condition for the alliance," I said, keeping my voice quiet. "He wants to know I’m trustworthy. Not just told, shown. So he wants me living and working inside their group for a week. Helping them, being around them, letting them get a read on me."

"Why does it have to be you there for a whole week—"

"Sydney." Christopher’s voice was dry. "He’s not moving to Japan. It’s a five minute walk."

"I don’t trust those people," she said, scoffing. "We don’t know them well enough. We don’t know what they want from him specifically. And a week is a long time."

"Listen," I said, and my voice went quieter and more serious. "Callighan and Gaspar, those two can’t keep living this close to us. Gaspar especially. He’s already taken Mei, he’s already put his Symbiote inside Penny, and Emily is still in their reach. I can’t let that keep being the situation we’re in." I looked between them. "An alliance with Marlon is the clearest path to ending it. And to make that alliance actually work, not just in words but in practice I have to do this."

"I get it," Christopher said, his arms crossed but his expression settled and serious. "I don’t love it either but I follow the logic. And if it helps build something that lasts past just dealing with Callighan—" He shrugged. "Margaret’s group, Marlon’s group, actually trusting each other. That’s worth something."

"That’s exactly it," I said.

"What if I come with you?" Sydney asked. "Both of us together, we prove it faster—"

"No," I said. "I need you here. Penny needs watching, Kunta needs support, and if anything moves with Callighan while I’m gone I need people here who can actually do something about it." I met her eyes. "You’re not decoration, Sydney. I need you here because you’re important here."

She groaned under her breath. Not convinced so much as running out of angles to argue from.

I reached over and pinched her cheek between two fingers.

"I’m not going to Japan," I said, and I couldn’t keep the smile entirely out of it. "Relax."

She swatted my hand away. "It might as well be Japan. And what about our—" she lowered her voice slightly, though her expression made up for the volume, " sexual activities? You expect me to just go without for an entire week? That’s cruel! I wanted to try new things like—hmphff!!"

Rachel’s hand closed over Sydney’s mouth thankfully.

"Ignore this idiot," Christopher said to me, completely unbothered. "We’ve got it covered on this end. Just watch yourself over there."

"I know," I smiled.