Page 86 - DivineSparkRisingFinal

Divine Spark Rising
In a basement café off Rua da Madalena, Jinji sat
cross-legged on a battered couch, laptop balanced
on her knees, the glow of code scrolling across the
screen. The espresso at her side had gone cold.
Her phone buzzed once. She slipped on her
earbuds, already wary. The line opened with
Carolina’s voice, but a half second later the sound
fractured into a wall of static.
Jinji’s lips twitched. Good. She remembered.
Beneath the smirk, something else flickered. She
had told herself she didn’t care if they never spoke
again, that she was better off without the ties, the
history, the quiet hurt. But hearing Carolina’s voice,
even through static, cracked the armor. The silence
had always been the problem, not the rules.
For the first time in months, the weight in her
chest lifted, just a little.
She let out a breath she didn’t know she had
been holding. “About time,” she murmured, almost
to herself.
She tapped a small silver key device into the
phone’s port. Her own design, the partner to the
injector she had buried in Carolina’s system long
ago. Not just a tool, but a secret tether between
them. A way to talk and text in private when the
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