Chapter 702: Dead End

Then Brittany reached for her phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling a lawyer."

Trisha stared at her. "It’s midnight."

"Then I’ll wake one up." Brittany’s thumb was already moving across the screen, pulling up a directory of awakened legal firms she’d bookmarked months ago and never thought she’d need. Her voice had changed. The desperation was still there, but it had curdled into fury, and fury was easier to move with than grief. "You said they charge a fortune for their time? Fine. If I’m going to be broke in sixty-eight hours, I might as well make some overpaid attorney uncomfortable first."

"Britt-"

"What’s the worst that happens? They say no? They hang up?" She found a name, tapped it, and raised the phone to her ear.

Trisha watched her with an expression that wanted to be skeptical but couldn’t quite get there, because the fire in Brittany’s eyes was the first living thing she’d seen in either of them since they’d walked out of Maeve’s tent.

The phone rang twice.

"Hargrove and Sato, after-hours line. How can I direct your call?"

Brittany sat up straighter. "I’m an A-tier awakened combatant and I need to speak with a contract specialist tonight."

The line was quiet for a beat, and when the voice returned, the bored professionalism had been replaced by something considerably more attentive.

She was right. Lawyers who dealt with awakened clients operated on awakened schedules. No one in the industry wanted to miss a call from a superhuman who might become a long-term client, because an A-tier fighter in your contact list was worth more than a hundred civilian retainers. The promise of proximity to power opened doors that money alone couldn’t.

The receptionist transferred her within thirty seconds.

The attorney was polite, alert, and genuinely interested for the first four minutes. He asked about the contract structure, the timeline, the parties involved. His voice carried the careful enthusiasm of a man who smelled a high-value case.

Then Brittany said the name Ashbound, and the enthusiasm cooled.

She heard it happen in real time. The slight pause before his next question. The shift from ’tell me more’ to ’let me understand the scope.’ He asked about the specific clause. She told him. He asked about the deadline. She told him. He asked about the confidentiality provisions and she said she didn’t know the exact language but assumed they existed, and what followed was the silence of a man doing math that didn’t add up in her favor.

"I appreciate you reaching out. Given the timeline and the parties involved, I’d recommend you contact a firm with existing arbitration experience in guild-level contract disputes. We primarily handle individual awakened employment matters, and a case of this complexity would require resources we aren’t positioned to deploy on this schedule."

Translation: we’re not fighting the Ashbound legal department for you.

"Thank you for your time," Brittany said, and hung up.

She called the next firm. The conversation lasted six minutes and ended the same way, though the attorney used more words to say less. Conflict of interest, he explained. His firm had consulted for Ashbound-adjacent entities in the past, and taking the case would create an ethical complication he wasn’t comfortable with.

Translation: we already work for people who work for them.

The third firm didn’t answer. The fourth picked up, listened for three minutes, and asked for a fifty-thousand-Chronos retainer before they’d review the contract language. When Brittany asked about payment plans, the attorney’s warmth evaporated and the call ended in under a minute.

The fifth firm’s after-hours associate was young and eager and spent twenty minutes taking detailed notes before putting Brittany on hold. She came back seven minutes later with the careful voice of someone who’d just been told what to say by a senior partner.

"After reviewing the details, we don’t believe we’re the right fit for your needs at this time. I wish you the best of luck, and please don’t hesitate to reach out if your situation changes."

Brittany lowered the phone and stared at it.

Trisha hadn’t moved from her spot against the railing. She’d listened to every call, watched Brittany’s spine get a little straighter with each dial and a little more bent with each hang-up, and the look on her face was worse than ’I told you so.’ It was grief for the version of Brittany who’d picked up that phone believing effort could fix this.

"One more," Brittany said.

"Britt."

"One more."

The sixth firm specialized in guild disputes specifically. Their website said so. Brittany had saved their number months ago, back when she’d still believed she might need it someday for a different reason, a contract negotiation or a licensing disagreement, the kind of normal legal problem that normal awakened fighters had.

The attorney who answered was a woman. She was direct, competent, and asked the right questions in the right order. She didn’t flinch at the Ashbound name. She didn’t make excuses about conflicts of interest. She listened to the entire situation, asked Brittany to repeat the clause language twice, and then was quiet for a long time.

"Here’s what I can tell you," she said. "You have grounds to challenge the scope interpretation and the net worth assessment. Both arguments are viable. The problem is enforcement timeline. Seventy-two hours isn’t enough to file and receive a stay through standard Association arbitration channels. To pause the deadline, you’d need an emergency injunction, which requires a filing fee of five thousand Chronos, a hearing within forty-eight hours, and a judge who’s willing to challenge an Ashbound contract on an expedited basis." She paused. "I’ll be honest with you. I know three judges in the awakened arbitration circuit who handle emergency filings. Two of them have professional relationships with the Ashbound legal team. The third retired last month."

Brittany closed her eyes.

"I’m sorry. If the deadline were thirty days, I’d take this case today. At seventy-two hours, I can’t build the filing fast enough to help you, and any attempt would just add legal fees to the obligations you’re already facing."

"Thank you," Brittany whispered, and ended the call.

She placed the phone face-down on the balcony floor.

Her hands were shaking. Her whole body was shaking, and the fury that had carried her through six phone calls drained out of her like heat from a corpse and left nothing behind but the cold and the moonlight and the sound of Trisha breathing beside her.

The tears came without warning. They weren’t the quiet kind from the mountain path. These were ugly and wrenching, the kind that bent her forward and squeezed sounds out of her that she didn’t recognize as her own voice. She pressed both hands over her face and sobbed into her palms, and her shoulders shook so hard that her teeth rattled.

Trisha moved beside her. She didn’t speak, simply pulling Brittany’s head into her lap and held it there with both hands, one on her temple and one in her hair, and Brittany curled into her and wept.

The balcony was very quiet after that.

Then Brittany’s phone rang.

She flinched so hard that Trisha’s hands tightened on her head. The screen lit up against the balcony floor, casting a white rectangle of light across the wood, and the caller ID showed a number neither of them recognized. No name. No prefix. Just digits.

Brittany wiped her face with her palm and looked at Trisha, who looked back with the same flat wariness.

"Probably a reporter," Trisha muttered.

Brittany picked it up. "Hello?"

The first thing she heard was breathing.

Heavy, wet breathing, the kind that came through parted lips, and behind it a low ambient hum that sounded expensive. Yacht engine, maybe. Or the filtered air of a penthouse climate system. The breathing went on for two seconds longer than it should have before a voice came through, and the voice was male and thick and carried the oily warmth of a man who was used to buying what he wanted.

"Good evening, ladies."

Brittany’s stomach turned. "Who is this?"

"I heard you’re in some trouble." A chuckle. Low and phlegmy. "Big trouble, from what I understand. The kind of trouble that smart young women shouldn’t have to face alone."

"Who is this?" Brittany repeated, and her voice hardened.

"Call me... Mister Hero." Another chuckle, longer, wetter. "I’m a friend. A friend with resources, and a deep appreciation for hot awakened women."