The broker's hand hangs between us.
Open.
Patient.
Certain.
Like a doorway that only pretends it isn't a trap.
Across from him, the auditor does not move. He doesn't need to. The space around him is already tightening—an invisible geometry of authority, lines drawing themselves into place with quiet precision. I feel it in my teeth. In the back of my skull. In the way the air "clicks" into alignment, as if the room has accepted a command it can't refuse.
Two hands.
Two systems.
Two ways to disappear.
Ardan's grip on my shoulder is firm, grounding, but even he feels… smaller now, as if the room has decided he's a footnote in someone else's report. His words flicker above his shadow—ACCOUNTANT, FLAGGED, DELINQUENT—like the world can't decide whether to punish him or simply erase him later.
The silver thread between me and the girl pulses erratically. It reacts to my indecision like a living nerve. Each time my heart stutters, it burns hotter, like it's warning me: you are not choosing for yourself alone.
The broker watches all of it with professional interest. Not fear. Not anger.
Interest—like a doctor examining a rare illness, or an investor studying a volatile stock.
"Take your time," he says gently. "Moments like these are formative."
The auditor tilts his head.
"Delay increases discrepancy," he says.
Even his voice feels like procedure. Like a stamp hitting paper.
I exhale slowly, and the breath tastes like metal.
"You both keep saying the same thing," I say. "That I have to choose."
The broker smiles as if he's proud of me for understanding.
"That's correct."
The auditor's tone stays flat.
"Selection is mandatory."
I look at the broker's hand. At the promise of distance from audits. Protection. Time. A framework that would stop the pain of trying to stand inside authority with no foundation beneath me.
Then I look at the auditor. At forced placement. Correction. A clean erasure by category.
Both futures feel wrong.
Not just dangerous. Not just terrifying.
Wrong—like wearing a name that doesn't fit your mouth.
My shadow twitches.
It shouldn't twitch. Shadows don't move unless you move.
Mine moves anyway.
Somewhere behind the broker, the fluorescent lights buzz louder, as if the building is swallowing fear. The corners of the room darken, thickening like wet ink. And in that ink I see it again—the suggestion of claws. Not on a creature. On the darkness itself.
A scrape. Quiet. Just once.
My skin prickles.
Ardan leans closer, his voice barely more than breath. "Mark. If you push against both of them at once…"
He doesn't finish.
He doesn't have to.
The thread between me and the girl flares, a white-hot line under my skin. She gasps, fingers tightening around my wrist like she's trying to keep me from falling through the floor.
I look at her.
Her eyes are wide and wet, furious with fear, jaw clenched like she's holding herself together by force.
And suddenly I'm tired.
Tired of being moved.
Tired of being filed.
Tired of hearing men with calm voices tell me what I am allowed to be.
I turn back to them.
"I reject both," I say.
The words fall into the space like broken glass.
The broker blinks.
The auditor freezes, just for a fraction of a second, like the command didn't parse.
"What?" Ardan breathes, as if he didn't hear me correctly.
"I'm not choosing between you," I say louder. "I'm choosing neither."
The auditor recovers first.
"Rejection of all available options is not permitted."
"That sounds like your problem," I say.
The broker laughs softly, amused.
"Oh, that's adorable," he says. "But no. You don't get to opt out of the market."
"Watch me."
The word above my shadow—SELF-ASSIGNED—begins to change.
Not flicker. Not stack. Not glitch.
It stretches.
Letters pull apart, reweaving themselves as if being rewritten from the inside. The sensation isn't just visual. It's physical—like something behind my ribs is rearranging bones that were never meant to move.
My lungs seize. My vision narrows.
The corners of the room darken further, and in that darkness, claws become clearer—curved hooks made of shadow, dragging across tile. Scrape. Scrape. The sound is soft, but it goes straight into my nervous system.
The auditor takes one step back.
"Unrecognized process detected," he says.
The broker's smile tightens. For the first time, he doesn't look entertained. He looks careful.
"Careful," he warns. "If you destabilize yourself too far, you won't be tradable."
"I don't care," I say—and surprise myself with how true it is.
Pain lances through my chest as the thread flares white-hot. I gasp, nearly dropping to my knees. It's not injury pain—it's connection pain, like the thread is protesting the strain of being dragged across a boundary that shouldn't exist.
The girl cries out.
"Mark—stop—this is hurting—!"
"I know," I grit out. "I know. But listen to me."
I turn to face her fully. My hands shake, but I keep my grip on her wrist. I force the words out like I'm forcing air into a collapsing lung.
"For once," I say, "I'm not letting anyone decide what we are."
The thread responds.
Not tightening.
Aligning.
It straightens, becoming less like a leash and more like a line drawn deliberately by two hands. I feel it lock into place—click, like a mechanism finding its groove.
Above her shadow, the words rearrange:
BOUND
CONSENTING
Ardan's breath catches hard.
"That's impossible," he whispers. "Binding requires external authority."
"Then why does it feel right?" I whisper back.
The broker's eyes narrow, calculating again, but different now—less greedy, more wary.
"That's… not a trade," he says slowly. "That's mutual declaration."
The auditor's voice sharpens.
"Unauthorized mutuality detected."
"Of course it is," Ardan mutters. "The system hates consent."
The air pressure spikes. It isn't just authority anymore. It's anger, cold and precise, like a correction mark slamming onto paper.
The auditor raises his hand.
"This anomaly has exceeded acceptable variance," he says. "Escalating to nullification."
Nullification.
The word makes my vision darken at the edges, like reality is trying to blink me out.
In the thickening shadows, the claws shift.
They're closer now.
Not attached to anything I can see—just darkness with intent. The corner behind the auditor ripples, and for a heartbeat I see a mouth where a shadow should be, teeth made of absence.
The broker swears quietly.
"Ah," he says. "You pushed him too far."
"Then help me," I snap. "Or get out of the way."
The broker hesitates.
Just a fraction of a second.
Long enough to tell me something important.
He isn't sure what happens next.
Auditors are not his product. A nullification event doesn't care about market value. It burns everything down and calls it cleanliness.
The auditor steps forward—
—and the world bends.
Shelves warp. Labels on boxes stretch into unreadable strings. The floor ripples like rubber. Words tear free from shadows, floating loose like scraps of paper in a storm.
My stomach rolls.
I taste blood.
I feel the ledger behind reality opening its jaws.
This is it. This is where they erase mistakes.
"No," I say.
Not loudly. Not angrily.
Firmly.
The transformation above my shadow completes.
SELF-ASSIGNED finishes reshaping.
A new phrase locks into place, burning steady and clear:
SELF-DEFINED
The room goes silent.
Not frozen.
Listening.
Like the building itself is holding its breath, waiting to see if the universe will accept the audacity of that label.
The auditor stops mid-step.
"That classification does not exist," he says.
"It does now," I reply.
The broker stares at the word, and for the first time something like genuine awe breaks through his composure.
"Oh," he breathes. "That's… new."
The thread surges—still painful, but no longer chaotic. Strong. Stable. Like it has finally found a shape it can live inside.
Above the girl's shadow, another word forms, answering mine:
CHOSEN
She looks at me, stunned, as if she can feel the word under her skin.
"You chose me," she whispers.
"No," I say softly. "We chose each other."
The difference matters. I feel it echo through the thread like a bell struck in a cathedral.
The auditor's shadow fractures. Lines of authority snap, re-routing themselves, confused. He tries to recalculate, but the numbers won't add up.
"Self-definition bypasses market placement," the broker murmurs. "And audit jurisdiction."
The auditor's voice glitches, static tearing across his syllables.
"This entity cannot be—"
"—owned," I finish for him.
The pressure collapses outward like a breath released.
Time slams back into motion.
People in the aisle—frozen like mannequins—gasp. Bottles shatter. A cart crashes into a display. Someone screams at nothing, and another person laughs in panicked confusion.
Emergency lights flicker. Normal lights sputter, trying to pretend nothing happened.
The auditor stumbles back. For the first time he looks… unstable. Not scared. Not emotional. Structurally unsound, as if the shape he borrowed doesn't fit anymore.
"This audit is… suspended," he says. "Pending higher review."
His shadow pulls inward, collapsing into a single point before vanishing.
And with him, the tightness in the air releases.
The supermarket becomes a supermarket again—bright, cheap, noisy.
People blink. People mutter. A cashier calls for a manager as if that will fix what their bodies felt but their minds can't explain.
Ardan grabs my elbow.
"Move," he says. "Now."
My legs shake. My lungs burn. The word SELF-DEFINED still hovers above my shadow like a fresh scar.
The broker steps away from both of us now, hands raised—not surrender, not fear. Respect.
"You've just made yourself unlistable," he says. "Do you have any idea what that means?"
I swallow.
"It means you can't sell me."
His smile turns sharp and real.
"It also means," he says, "everyone dangerous will want you erased."
"Let them try," I say, surprised by my own voice. It isn't brave. It's simply done being negotiated.
The broker tilts his head.
"You changed the rules," he says. "Not broken them. Changed them."
He looks at the girl, then at the thread, then back at the word above me.
"That's rare," he adds softly. "And very… profitable."
"Stay away from us," Ardan warns.
The broker chuckles.
"Oh, accountant. I'm already away. I don't chase. I wait for people to return."
Then he fades—his shadow peeling away last like ink soaking back into paper.
My knees finally give out. Ardan catches me with a grunt.
"You're insane," he says, breathless. "Do you realize what you just did?"
"I think," I say, "I made enemies."
Ardan laughs once, sharp and almost hysterical.
"Oh, you made worse," he says. "You made interest."
The girl kneels in front of me, taking my face in her hands. Her palms are warm, shaking.
"We're still here," she says. "That means it worked."
I nod, but my eyes drift down to the floor—where my shadow stretches long under flickering lights.
SELF-DEFINED burns above it like a brand.
And then, beneath it, one last word flickers into existence.
Quiet.
Waiting.
TARGET.