Chapter 5

The safehouse floorboards creaked under Lena’s twitching fingers, the iron tang of New Orleans seeping through the walls like a poison fog, while Jax paced nearby, his bruised shoulder a stark reminder of their frantic escape. Lena pressed her cheek against the grimy wood, desperate for the cooling touch of mud or the damp embrace of moss, but there was only dusty oak and the screeching vibration of the city. 

The Severing was no longer just a hollow ache; it was a rhythmic violence. Every few seconds, a tremor rumbled through her spine—a phantom earthquake born from the distance between her soul and the cypress roots of the Bend. The "Urban Wall" pressed in on her, the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant throb of the electrical grid sounding like hornets trapped in her skull. It made her stomach churn with a greasy, industrial nausea.

"Lena, you’re shaking again," Jax said. His voice was sandpaper-rough, devoid of its usual skepticism. He stopped his pacing, his shadow falling over her curled form. 

"I know... I know, no no, I know," she whispered, the repetition slipping out before she could catch it. She reached out, her fingers fumbling blindly until they brushed the heavy canvas of his boot, then the warmth of his ankle. 

The moment her skin met his, the world stilled. The tremors in her hands didn't vanish, but they dampened, the chaotic frequency of the city finding a grounding conductor in him. Jax didn't pull away. He sank onto his haunches, offering his hand. Lena took it, gripping his calloused palm like a lifeline. He was organic, he was alive, and for a fleeting second, the deafening silence where her magic used to sing wasn't quite so terrifying.

"It’s the iron," she whispered, her voice a fragile thread. "The city... it’s a cage of wires and cold metal, Jax. It cuts the breath right out of me. Gator’s truth, I feel like I’m drowning in dry air."

Jax watched her, his brow furrowed. "I used to think you were just eccentric, Duval. Or high on swamp gas. But I can feel it. You’re like a radio losing its signal." He shifted, wincing as he adjusted his bruised shoulder. "We can’t stay here. If they tracked us to the last spot, they’re closing the loop on this one too."

Lena leaned her head against his knee, her eyes fluttering shut. "I owe you the 'why' of it. You’re in the current now, cher, and it’s only fair you know where the falls are."

She took a breath, and when she spoke, her words began to meander, winding like the slow-moving Bayou Chevreuil during a summer drought. "Project Phlegethon... it isn't just about docks and condos. The Terrebonne folks, they’re looking to pierce the Heart of the Bend. There’s a vein there, a deep place where the water stays cold even in August. They want to run their pipes right through the center of it, dump the runoff where the spirits drink. It’ll be a river of fire, Jax. Industrial rot poured into the very veins of the land until the swamp sours and the cypress turn to bone."

"And your coven?" Jax asked, his tone grim. "Why would they let them? Maribelle lives for that land."

"Maribelle lives for power," Lena spat, the name tasting like copper. "She thinks she can bargain with the rot. She thinks if she lets them poison the physical world, she can bottle the agony it causes—use it to fuel her own workings. She’s trading the soul of the Bend for a crown of black glass. She’s complicit, helping them clear the 'metaphysical brush' while they bring in the bulldozers."

A sharp, needles-and-pins sensation pricked the back of Lena’s neck. Her silver locket, tucked beneath her shirt, began to throb. It wasn't the gentle, rhythmic pulse of her mother’s heartbeat she used to imagine; it was a jagged, frantic vibration that synced perfectly with the distant rattling of a streetcar three blocks away.

*You see how small you are, Little Bird?*

The voice wasn't in the room. It was a cold oily slick sliding through the cracks of her mind. Maribelle.

"No," Lena gasped, her hand flying to the locket, twisting the silver chain around her index finger until the metal bit into her flesh. 

*Without the Bend, you are nothing but meat and bone,* the voice taunted. *The city will grind you into dust. Come home, Lena. The swamp is hungry.*

"Get out," Lena hissed. "Hellfire, get out of my head!"

Jax gripped her shoulders. "Lena? Who are you talking to?"

"The locket..." She yanked it out, holding the shimmering disk between them. It was vibrating so hard it blurred. "It’s not her. It’s not Mama. Maribelle is using it like a... like a lightning rod. The city noise, the industrial hum—it’s feeding the connection. I’m blind to the woods, but I’m a beacon for her in this hell."

She looked around the room, her eyes wide and bloodshot. She grabbed a discarded scrap of burlap from a corner—something natural, something not made in a factory—and wrapped it tightly around the locket, trying to muffle the vibration. It helped, but only a little. The "Urban Wall" she had hoped would shield her was instead acting as a sounding board for her aunt’s psychic intrusions.

"We have a leak," Jax said suddenly, standing up and pulling her with him. He moved to the window, peering through a crack in the boarded-up glass. "I saw a black sedan twice on the way here. I thought I'd lost them in the Marigny, but there's a mark on the doorframe outside. A fresh scratch. Someone's been marking our trail."

Lena felt the panic rising, a frantic "no no, not that, no no" blooming in her chest. Her magic was gone—the vines she could usually command to trip a pursuer or the fog she could summon to cloak their tracks were nothing but memories of a ghost.

"The neutral contact," she said, trying to steady her breathing. "The one Remy talked about. The one who handles 'displaced talent' inside the Wall."

"The asset in the Quarter," Jax nodded, checking his piece. "If we move now, we can lose them in the crowds of Bourbon. They won't risk a scene there. But you... can you walk? The nausea?"

Lena stood, her legs feeling like wet clay. She reached out, her hand lingering on Jax’s arm for one more second of grounding warmth before she squared her shoulders. She didn't apologize for her weakness; she simply took the burden of it. 

"I’ll walk," she said. "I’ve survived the cottonmouth’s nest and Maribelle’s spite. I won't be broken by a little bit of concrete and bad intentions, mon coeur."

The use of the endearment made Jax pause, a flicker of something soft and startled crossing his face before the grim mask of the survivor returned. "Then let's move."

**SCENE A**

Inside Lena's mind, the silence was the loudest thing. It was a deafness that felt like a missing limb. Back in the Bend, she never had to search for her place; the swamp knew her name. Every ripple in the tea-colored water, every croak of a bullfrog, every sigh of the wind through the Spanish moss was a conversation. Now, as they hovered by the door of the safehouse, those memories felt like old photographs left out in the rain—blurred, bleeding, and receding. 

The locket against her chest felt like a hot coal. She tried to think of the magnolia trees, the heavy, sweet scent that usually clung to her skin like a second soul, but the smell of New Orleans was too jagged. It was a cocktail of diesel, old grease, and the sharp, ozone-tingle of straining transformers. She felt the Severing deeper in the city. It wasn't just that the magic was gone; it was that the city actively hated what she was. The "Urban Wall" wasn't a passive barrier; it was a grinder. 

What if Maribelle was right? What if she was just meat and bone without the Bayou? She looked at her hands, the nails bitten short, the skin pale and slick with a sweat that smelled of fear rather than the rich, dark earth of home. She had spent her whole life trying to run from the responsibility of the Duval name, from the sacrificial weight of her mother’s legacy, but she hadn’t realized that the land was her lungs. Every step away from the Bend was a step toward suffocation. 

Yet, as she looked at Jax—his broad back, the way he favored his bruised shoulder but never complained—she felt a different kind of rooting. It wasn't a connection to the earth, but a tether to a person. It was terrifying in a new way. Magic was a bargain with nature, predictable in its wildness. This was a bargain with a man who had every reason to leave her in the gutter. He was the only piece of the "organic" world she had left to hold onto. She felt the urge to reach out and touch his sleeve again, just to verify he hadn't turned into iron and static like the rest of the world. She suppressed the shiver that threatened to crack her ribs. She couldn't afford to be a ghost yet.

**SCENE B**

"Duval, focus," Jax whispered, his hand catching her elbow as she swayed. He didn't look at her; his eyes were glued to the alleyway through the slats of the door. "I need you to tell me exactly what we're looking for. This contact of Remy’s—give me a name."

"He didn't give a name, hellfire," Lena hissed back, the frustration boiling over. "Remy’s more secrets than a قبر (grave) sometimes. He just said to find the house with the iron peacock on the gate. Near the corner of St. Phillip. Said they’d know a Duval on sight, даже (even) if that Duval was half-dead and twice as blind."

Jax grunted, a low sound of disapproval. "Great. A bird on a gate in the busiest part of the city. We’re going to be targets the moment we hit the sidewalk."

"We’re already targets, Jax. Gator's truth, Maribelle’s already in the house. She’s sitting in my ear right now, telling me how much the worms are going to enjoy my eyes." Lena clutched the burlap-wrapped locket. "If we stay here, we’re just waiting for the casket to close."

Jax finally turned to look at her. The skepticism that had defined him when they first met in the swamp was gone, replaced by a dark, weary recognition. "You really hear her? It’s not just... the stress?"

"It’s not stress. It’s a velvet rope around my neck. Every time the city lights flicker, she gets a little more slack. She’s using the grid, Jax. The electricity, the noise—it’s like a megaphone for her." Lena swallowed hard, her throat feeling like it was lined with glass. "She wants me back so she can finish what she started. She needs a Duval to anchor the poison Terrebonne is pouring in. She’s too old, too twisted to hold it herself anymore."

"She’s not getting you," Jax said. It wasn't a comfort; it was a statement of fact, delivered with the same bluntness he used to navigate his boat through a storm. "I didn't lose my boat and half my skin just to hand you over to some swamp-witch with a god complex."

"I owe you for the boat," Lena muttered, twisting the chain of the locket. "I owe you for more than that."

"Pay me back by staying upright," Jax replied. He reached into his jacket, checking the slide on his pistol with a mechanical click that made Lena flinch. "We move on three. No stopping. If the nausea hits, you fight it. You hear me?"

"I don't give up, Harlan," Lena snapped, her jaw tightening. "I might puke on your boots, but I’ll keep walking."

Jax’s mouth twitched—the closest thing to a smile she’d seen in days. "Fair enough."

**SCENE C**

They moved out into the night, and immediately, the Urban Wall hit Lena with the force of a physical blow. The safehouse had been a cocoon of sorts, but the open street was a riot of hostile energy. The neon signs of the Lower Ninth flashed like sirens in her peripheral vision. Every car that passed felt like a serrated blade drawing across her skin. 

They kept to the shadows, Jax leading her through a series of narrow cuts and side streets. He moved with a heavy, practiced grace, his eyes constantly scanning the rooftops and the parked cars. Lena followed, her world reduced to the sight of his heels and the frantic, buzzing heat in her chest. 

The city felt predatory. It wasn't the hungry, primal predation of the swamp where a gator waited in the reeds—that was natural. This was a mechanical hunger. The buildings felt like teeth, the asphalt like a tongue. Without her magic to sense the flow of the world, she felt exposed, a soft thing moving through a world of sharp edges. 

As they crossed a deserted lot filled with rusted machinery, the locket began to hum a different tune. It wasn't the frantic vibration from before; it was a steady, low-frequency thrum that made the hair on her arms stand up. The air grew thick, the humidity suddenly carrying a scent that didn't belong in the city: the smell of stagnant water and rotting lilies.

Jax stopped, his hand going to his hip. He felt it too—the sudden drop in temperature, the way the sound of the city seemed to muffle, as if they had stepped into a pocket of dead air. 

"Stay close," he breathed.

They slipped out the back door, the humid New Orleans night air hitting Lena like a physical blow. Without her magical sight, the alleyway was a terrifying maze of sharp edges and unknown shadows. The Urban Wall didn't just dampen her power; it draped a shroud over her intuition. 

As they neared the mouth of the alley, Lena’s locket suddenly flared with a heat so intense it scorched through the burlap. She flinched, her hand going to her chest. 

"Jax, something's—"

She stopped. Her eyes, stripped of their ability to see the shimmering auras of the supernatural, saw only the mundane world—the trash cans, the crumbling brick, the flickering streetlamp. But for the first time since the Severing, she felt a different kind of cold. Not the clinical cold of the city, but a predatory, damp chill that didn't belong on a New Orleans sidewalk.

She looked toward the mouth of the alley, seeing nothing but the orange glow of the streetlamp. But the locket was screaming now, a metallic screeching in her senses that told her she was looking right at a predator she could no longer perceive.

The locket burned hot against her skin, humming louder than the city’s growl, as a shadow uncoiled from the alley—watching, waiting, no longer hidden by her lost sight.