Page 41 of Collateral Love
Breathing filled the line. Ragged. Controlled, like somebody trying not to cry too loud.
“She told me to call you,” a woman whispered.
I didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
“What did she say?” I asked, voice level.
“That… you’d know what to do next,” the woman said. “She said not to panic. Said you’d understand.”
I closed my eyes once.
Kenya never wasted words.
“Anything else?” I pressed.
The woman hesitated.
Then she said it.
“For the restie.”
The world stopped.
Not my heart — that stayed steady. But everything else froze around that sentence as it had just been hit with ice.
Only one person on this planet said that like that.
Only one person used it when things were about to get ugly, but still under control.
I exhaled slowly.
“She okay?” I asked.
The line went dead.
I lowered the phone.
X was already standing.
“That was her,” he said.
“No,” I replied. “But it was her math.”
Channy swallowed hard. “She’s alive.”
“She’s alert,” I corrected. “And she’s still running the board.”
X’s fingers were already moving again. Faster now. Sharper.
“That phrase,” he said. “She only uses it when she’s buying time.”
“Exactly,” I replied.
Kenya didn’t send reassurance.
She sent instruction.
