Now she could hurt them.

Clo caught sight of the guard’s sandy hair. He turned into another alley. Clo dove into the throngs of people, not bothering with apologies. She shoved through as if making her way into the thickest part of a peat bog.

Hard left. Another right. Past the tenements of families she once knew.

Focus.

She gasped with relief when she spotted the guard once more. He wasn’t moving fast, having to push against the masses. Maybe he’d come through there a few times—passed into no-man’s-land on the sly to buy his lunch from one of the many joints that served cheap food you ate at your own risk.

But this was not his world. It was hers.

The Snarl was a law unto itself. Tholosian guards were always nearby, if needed, but they didn’t patrol the perimeter. Why bother? Outside the precious buildings was only dead swamp as far as the eye could see. Farms were guarded, as were transport centers, but otherwise, the Snarl was left to fend for itself. Residents formed a loose police force, run on bribes, and they had their own harsh sense of justice. It wasn’t as riddled with crime as someone might expect. Only nearly so.

Someone screamed at her for treading on their toe. Clo threw a halfhearted apology over her shoulder. She could feel the language of the Snarl returning to her, twanging her vowels and dropping consonants. It’d taken so long to train herself out of it so she wouldn’t betray where she came from every time she opened her mouth.

“Empire scum!” someone was bold enough to yell at Clo, noticing the patch on her jumpsuit.

People would remember seeing her, if authorities bothered to interview residents here after all of this. Not good.

You can’t worry about that. Keep running.

One of the laundries emitted a plume of near-scalding steam. She fought her way through it, coughing. When it cleared, the guard had disappeared.

“Silt.” Where would he have gone?

She was already nearing the distant side of the slums, not too far from the hidden craft that could take them back to the stars.

She paused for a precious second, imagining the various routes through the cramped buildings. The ground level there was tight, but a few floors up, it was usually lighter foot traffic. The guard must be making for the northeast exit—it was near the driest road, not far from another transport station.

The stairwell was fifty feet away and just as packed at the ground level. She didn’t have room for a running jump, so she grabbed the nearest drainpipe and scrambled up. It meant attracting more attention than she’d like, but this was also far from the first time she’d done this. She’d climbed these condemned buildings every day in her youth. She’d just done it with two working legs.