Valen was gone. The alley was empty. But the feeling wasn’t.

  Elias let out a slow breath, fingers pressing against the card in his pocket. He should have thrown it away. He should have walked away.

  He hadn’t.

  And that was exactly what Valen had been waiting for.

  Sera hadn’t moved. She stood with arms crossed, waiting, composed. Not smug. Not triumphant. Just patient, like she knew this was coming. Like she knew something he didn’t.

  “You knew he’d come,” Elias said finally.

  Sera nodded. “Eventually.”

  Elias scoffed, rubbing his face. “And you weren’t going to warn me?”

  Sera tilted her head slightly. “Would it have changed anything?”

  Elias frowned but didn’t argue.

  He exhaled sharply. “He didn’t try to force me to take the deal. Didn’t push. He just… let me go.”

  Sera gave him a knowing look. “And?”

  Elias’ stomach twisted.

  Because she was right.

  He wasn’t asking the question because he didn’t know the answer.

  He was asking because he hated what it was.

  Valen had let him go because he didn’t have to force him.

  He was already on the path.

  Sera didn’t say it. She didn’t need to.

  “The Pawn Shops don’t operate the way people think,” she said instead. “They don’t have to chase. They don’t have to convince. People come to them, thinking they’re in control. Thinking they’re making a choice.”

  She met his gaze. “But the Shops don’t trade in money. They trade in what people don’t realize they can lose.”

  Elias let out a humorless chuckle. “That’s vague and ominous. I’m guessing it gets worse.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Sera gave a small, almost-smile. Not mocking. Just knowing. “It always does.”

  Elias ran a hand through his hair. “Alright. What do they trade, then?”

  Sera exhaled. “Time. Memories. Purpose. The ability to care about something. The reason you wake up in the morning.”

  The words landed too heavy in his chest.

  Elias thought of the people he had seen, the ones who walked into those places and came out… different.

  Not just people in dark alleyways. Not just the desperate.

  Anyone.

  A singer he’d watched on TV, who seemed like a completely different person after a career “break.” A man he used to see on the train every morning, whose face had once been familiar, but now felt like someone else entirely.

  The world kept moving, and no one noticed when people changed.

  But maybe it wasn’t change.

  Maybe it was something worse.

  Sera continued, voice calm. “The Lost are the ones who traded too much. Not all at once. Most of them don’t even realize it’s happening. They make one deal. Then another. A little time here. A sliver of memory there. Until there’s nothing left of who they were.”

  Elias frowned. “And then?”

  Sera’s expression darkened. “Then they fade. Some slowly. Some all at once. Some aren’t even aware they’re gone.”

  Elias rubbed his temple. “And the ones who don’t?”

  He was hopeful, expectant. Maybe he could find some way out. Maybe he could escape all this, just walk away without ever being caught. He wasn’t sure how, but he had to hold onto that possibility. The thought that it wasn’t too late, that there was still time to get out.

  Sera’s expression darkened, realizing what he was thinking. “Some are favored by the system.”

  The words hit like a cold gust of wind.

  “They become the agents. They assimilate into the system, but they’re not like the Lost. They don’t fade into nothingness. They’re twisted by it.” She paused, letting that sink in. “They were valuable before they lost themselves. People with intelligence, ambition, the ability to see things differently—things that the Pawn Shops could use. They don’t disappear, Elias. They become a part of it, its agents, its workers.”

  Elias’ chest tightened. “So they’re the ones who… who survive?”

  “They don’t survive,” she corrected him. “They become the system. They become its tools. They lure others in. They manipulate. They exist in both worlds—living in society, but also pulling the strings from within. They sell the lie, sell deals, run the Pawn Shops without ever realizing they’ve become nothing more than extensions of it.”

  Elias swallowed, a bitter taste rising in his mouth. “And Valen is one of them.”

  “Valen is the best of them,” Sera said. “The best Lie Seller the Pawn Shops have. He’s the one who twists the most valuable into something they can use. He knows how to sell the lie. He knows what people need to hear. What they want to believe. And that’s what keeps them locked in.”

  Elias felt a sickening weight in his gut. The best Lie Seller. The one who manipulated everything, the one who could make deals that turned people into agents—into pieces of the system. He hadn’t realized just how deep this went. How much power was behind it.

  “How do you know all this?” Elias asked, his voice rough.

  Sera looked at him carefully. “I’ve been trying to break the system for a long time, Elias. I failed. But I know how it works. I know how they work.”

  Elias was quiet for a moment, absorbing the weight of her words. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to warn him or prepare him.

  But what struck him the most was the way she separated things.

  “Earlier, you called them the system and the Lie Seller,” Elias said, furrowing his brow. “Why not just call it all the same thing?”

  Sera’s eyes darkened. “Because they’re not the same thing. The system is the Pawn Shops—the rules, the structure, the system that keeps everything running. The Lie Seller, on the other hand, is the one who trades. The dealers. The traders. Those like Valen who sell the lie. They don’t just keep the system running. They manipulate. They create the deals. They shape the rules, bend them however they need. The system is nothing without the Lie Sellers. And the Lie Sellers wouldn’t survive without the system.”

  Elias felt his thoughts blur. “So Valen is both?”

  “He is the best of them. The perfect Lie Seller,” Sera corrected. “But they all have their part. They all fit into this twisted hierarchy.”

  Elias struggled to find words. It was too much, too many layers of manipulation. He had hoped for some way out, some possibility of escaping this entire thing. But it was clear now.

  Escape wasn’t going to be easy. If it was even possible at all.

  And that thought… that idea that he might be too far gone, too far down the rabbit hole… it terrified him.

  He let out a breath, shifting his weight. “And you?”

  Sera blinked.

  Elias hesitated, then narrowed his eyes. “If you don’t work for the Lie Sellers… if you’re not Lost… then what are you?”

  Sera’s lips parted slightly, but she didn’t answer immediately. For the first time, something flickered across her face—uncertainty. Conflict.

  Elias caught it.

  For the first time, she hesitated.

  And then, slowly—

  “I…”

  She stopped.

  The words refused to come.

  For just a second, Sera lo

  oked as if she wasn’t entirely sure of the answer herself.

  And that, more than anything, unsettled Elias the most.

  End of Chapter 11.