My second night in the fish warehouse.

  I sat slumped against the damp wooden wall, eyes open, staring into a darkness as profound as the void inside my own head.

  Empty.

  That was the most terrifying reality. For the first time since my rebirth—even since my death in my previous life—my mind was a complete blank.

  Not calm. Not peaceful. But a dead emptiness, like a well dried down to its bones, nothing left but dust and cracks.

  Every plan, every analysis, every calculation was gone. They had burned with the letters in the palace, drowned in the failure of Eagle’s Peak, and were buried under the fear of Maya maybe uttering my name in some interrogation room.

  All that remained was a vacuum, and at its center, a single question circling like a dead bat in a cave: What now?

  Ramon offered a smuggler’s route. Three more nights. But that path was just an extension of uncertainty. Becoming human cargo for smugglers whose loyalty ended where the cash did.

  Bobbing across the sea to some remote island or neighboring country that might just hand us right back to Mendez for a favorable diplomatic nod.

  That wasn’t a plan. It was surrender with different packaging.

  I have to think.

  The thought echoed in the emptiness, but nothing echoed back. No ideas. No strategy. Just a frozen void.

  From across the narrow room came a small, hiccupping sob. Eleanor. She stirred in her restless sleep, troubled by nightmares or the chill.

  Mother, sitting watch with her eyes closed but not sleeping, reached out and pulled her close, wrapping her in the thin, mildew-smelling blanket. Isabella, beside me, drew in a long, trembling breath.

  I looked away. I couldn’t bear to see them like this. Mother, the steel woman who now looked a decade older in just two days. Isabella, whose resilience was starting to crack into fine tremors in her hands. And Eleanor…

  Moving carefully, I shifted closer to her. In the dim glow seeping through the plastic curtain from a distant streetlight, I studied her face.

  It was smudged with dried patches of grime on her cheek. Her hair, usually in neat braids, was a tangled, greasy mess.

  But in the midst of it all, in her uncomfortable sleep, her lips still held a slight curve. A tiny, innocent smile, perhaps born from a dream about Coco or Fantasma, or maybe a memory of ice cream in the palace gardens that now felt like someone else’s life.

  That smile.

  Instantly, the void in my head wasn’t filled with a plan, but with something more primal, harder, and undeniable: responsibility.

  This was no longer about overthrowing Mendez. Not about restoring Father’s throne. Not about politics or ideology.

  This was about the smile on a little girl’s face as she slept on a dirty fish warehouse floor. About making sure that smile wasn’t erased forever by a Mendez firing squad, by disease in a refugee camp, or by starvation on a hopeless smuggling run.

  I have to do something.

  Not a wish. Not a hope. A fact.

  If I didn’t move, that smile would vanish. And if that happened, then my reincarnation meant nothing, all my memories and knowledge from a past life were worthless.

  I’d just be a lump of meat waiting to die, same as in my first life when that truck hit me.

  My mind began to work again, but slowly, staggering, like an old engine forced to turn over after years of stillness.

  Options. Analysis. Calculations.

  The smugglers? High risk, absolute dependency, unclear destination. No.

  Hiding in the countryside? With our faces on posters on every corner? Impossible.

  Surrendering? Death, or worse, becoming Mendez’s propaganda tools to crush what little legitimacy Father had left and destroy Eleanor from the inside out.

  No. No. No.

  Then, what?

  From the emptiness, two names surfaced. Two major powers on the world map I’d studied in the palace library.

  Two nations with interests in this region, their eyes always on countries like the Venez Republic, waiting for an opening, measuring for advantage.

  The American Democratic Federation (ADF). The superpower to the north. Vocal champions of democracy, self-appointed guardians of the "liberal world order."

  In the history of my old world, they were the global policeman and the global bully rolled into one.

  They intervened everywhere in the name of freedom, often leaving a worse mess behind.

  They toppled governments they didn’t like, supported dictators friendly to their businesses, and called it all "national security interests."

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  Their words were sweet: democracy, human rights, liberty. But their actions often smelled of oil, minerals, and hegemony.

  I remembered how they had a foreign president snatched just for threatening to nationalize their oil companies.

  If we went to them, we’d be tools, moral justification for their intervention. But would they actually help? Or would they just take what they wanted from this chaos and leave us stranded?

  And the other…

  The Brittonia Empire. The old kingdom that still had teeth. Subtler, colder. Less noisy about ideology, more interested in stability and economic access.

  They were masters of realpolitik, of playing both sides, of backing the power most advantageous to them.

  Father came to power through a coup, which usually made Brittonia wary—they preferred continuity, predictable stability. But Mendez might be seen as too volatile, too brutal, and that was bad for business.

  Brittonia might see value in supporting the return of a more predictable leader like Father, or at least in preventing Mendez from growing too strong and disruptive to their interests.

  But they could just as easily sell us out to Mendez if the price was right.

  Two toxic choices. Two paths littered with potential betrayal.

  But they were two of the few powers strong enough to challenge Mendez from the outside. And that’s what we needed now.

  We couldn’t fight from within anymore. Our network was ashes. We were fugitives. We needed an external force that could apply pressure, offer protection, change the chessboard.

  This was a desperate move. It would make us pawns in a much bigger game.

  But it was better to be a pawn still in play than a captured piece forgotten on the sidelines.

  The question was, how?

  The ADF had a large embassy in the capital. But that meant going back into the lion’s den. Impossible in our current state.

  But… they also had a consulate in the southern port city of San Marcos. Smaller, less guarded, probably still operating with a skeleton crew. If we could reach San Marcos via the smugglers’ routes…

  Brittonia had a trade office and consulate-general in the capital too, but they were famously known for their "informal channels"—contacts with businessmen, ship captains, people who could arrange quiet meetings. Ramon might know something. Or his smuggler contacts.

  A plan began to form in my mind, fragile and full of holes like an old fishing net.

  No choice. We have to try.

  1. Use Ramon’s smuggler route not to flee to the open sea, but to reach San Marcos.

  2. Disguise ourselves. We needed to change. Clothes, appearance, the way we carried ourselves. Eleanor would be the hardest. But maybe… we could pass as a poor family fleeing the riots.

  3. Approach the ADF consulate in San Marcos. Reveal our identities. Offer ourselves as "victims," as legitimizing tools for their intervention. It was disgusting. But it might work.

  4. If the ADF said no or seemed too risky, try to find a channel to the Brittonians through Ramon’s network.

  It was an insanely dangerous gamble. We’d be revealing our location to a foreign power that might not have our best interests at heart. We could be handed straight to Mendez. Or sold. Or disappeared.

  But the alternative was to keep running, keep hiding, until we were finally caught or died of exhaustion.

  I looked at Eleanor’s sleeping smile.

  It was the only currency I had left that held any value. It was the reason to take a risk even crazier than infiltrating a comms room.

  I closed my eyes, drawing a deep breath of the stifling air. I needed to discuss this with Mother. But not now. Right now, she needed rest. And I needed to work out the details.

  Disguises. We needed commoners' clothes, nothing conspicuous. Hair. Faces. Should we dye our hair? Cover it? Isabella and Mother could blend more easily.

  I… I had to change my walk, my speech. No longer the observant noble child, but a tired, wary street kid.

  San Marcos. What did I know about the port city? Bustling, full of foreign sailors, black markets, and intelligence agents from various countries milling about.

  A dangerous place, but also a place where identities could get lost in the crowd. The ADF consulate would be guarded, but probably not as tightly as in the capital.

  The ADF. What did they want? They wanted influence. They’d want Mendez gone if he was seen as destabilizing or hostile to their interests. They’d want military basing rights? Economic access? We could offer that—promises of access, of special relations after Father’s return.

  It felt like a betrayal of our country’s sovereignty. Maybe. But this country had no sovereignty under Mendez. And if that was the price for saving Eleanor’s smile…

  Brittonia. They were subtler. They might just want stability guarantees, trade contracts, protection for their investments. That might be more negotiable. But they were also slower, more bureaucratic.

  My head began to throb. Nausea rose in my throat. This wasn’t a chess game in the library anymore. This was betting our lives on the longest of long shots.

  But that smile.

  I opened my eyes again, watching Eleanor. She shifted, grumbled in her sleep, and then the small smile returned. Maybe she was dreaming of Coco saying, "Very good coffee!"

  Alright then, I thought, a decision crystalizing amidst the exhaustion and despair. We try.

  We walk into the jaws of a different wolf, hoping that wolf is more interested in eating the wolf currently on our tail.

  I stood up slowly, my joints stiff. I walked to the plastic curtain, peeking out through a gap. The market was quiet, lit only by a few oil lamps at stalls guarded overnight. Shadows moved—maybe cats, maybe night watchmen.

  In the distance, from the direction of the richer districts, a siren wailed. There were always sirens now. The sound of this city’s fear.

  I returned to my spot, rehearsing the words I’d use to persuade Mother Rosa.

  She would resist. She would see the risks, the betrayal, the greater dangers. But she would also see Eleanor’s face. And she would know, as I did, that there were no other choices left.

  Living as fugitives was just delayed death. Being pawns in a great game at least gave us a place on the board, even if we were just pieces.

  ***

  The night crawled by. I didn’t sleep. I planned. Every detail, every contingency, every point of failure. It was all about survival.

  I mapped routes in my head, crafted backstories for our disguises, recalled the faces of ADF diplomats I’d seen in newspaper photos.

  When the gray dawn began to seep through the cracks and the sounds of the market stirred to life again, I had made my decision.

  We wouldn’t wait three more nights for an uncertain smuggler’s passage. We’d ask Ramon to contact his people today.

  We would set out for San Marcos as soon as possible. With greater risk, but with a sliver of more tangible hope.

  I saw Mother open her eyes. They were tired, but still sharp. She looked at me, and it seemed she could read the resolve on my face before I uttered a single word.

  "We need to talk," I whispered.

  She nodded slowly, then her gaze drifted to Eleanor, still sleeping with that small smile.

  She knew. A mother always knows.

  And in her heavy silence, I saw the same acceptance I had felt last night. A bitter, reluctant, but inevitable acceptance.

  We would sacrifice our last shred of potential freedom for a chance—a small, dangerous chance—to protect a little girl’s smile.

  In this world that had become a jungle, where politics was war and power was the only law, maybe that was a thing worth fighting for.

  Even if the fight meant walking into a crocodile’s mouth, hoping it was hungrier for our enemy than for us.

  I took a breath, preparing my words, my arguments, steeling myself to ask Mother to follow this one, crazy plan.

  A new day was beginning. A day we would stop being passive fugitives and become hunters seeking allies among predators.

  This might be our greatest mistake.

  Or it might be the only right move left.

  Only time would tell. And time, like Mendez, had no mercy.

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