Page 9 of Bearly Out Loud

Instead, she scrolled through the character bible for Yua Voidwalker. Read the backstory. The motivation. The arc. And with every paragraph, the cold in her chest tightened, because this was not parallel creation. This was not coincidence. This wasa dead man’s unpublished masterwork wearing a different name and a new outfit and hoping nobody would notice.

Somebody noticed.

I noticed.

And I am not known for being quiet about things.

She closed the laptop. Sat in the dark of her loft with the booth’s blue standby light at her back and the city pressing against the windows and her grandfather’s voice in her head, patient and warm.

I’m going to open this door, Grandpa. And I’m going to find out who broke the lock.

She picked up her phone and texted.

I’m taking the role.

Three seconds. Takumi:OBVIOUSLY. Emi and I will be your emotional support team. He’s already in position.

Attached: a photo of Emi sitting on a mixing board, one paw on a fader, looking profoundly unimpressed by the entirety of human drama.

That cat has never supported an emotion in his life.

She typed:Emi looks like he’s about to fire someone.

Takumi:That’s his supportive face. Don’t judge his process.

Despite the cold in her chest, the anger she hadn’t given herself permission to release yet, the weight of a stolen legacy pressing against her ribs—she smiled.

Then she turned on the record player, dropped the needle on Coltrane, and sat on the floor of her loft in her red lipstick and bare feet and listened to a saxophone do the one thing she couldn’t right now: fill the silence without words.

Tomorrow, though. Tomorrow I’m going to be very, very loud about this.

FIVE

DOJIN

The sourdough needed checking at 5:14 a.m., which meant he was in his kitchenette by 5:12, because Gerald didn’t tolerate neglect, and neither did he.

Dojin moved through his personal space the way he moved through every room he owned—like it belonged to him, because it did. Six-foot-four and broad enough to make the countertops seem scaled for a smaller species. He reached past the copper pots without looking, pulled open the commercial refrigerator, and retrieved the jar from the back shelf.

Gerald. Seven years old. Active, healthy, the sour yeasty bloom of a culture thriving under consistent care.

Technically, Gerald was Reo’s responsibility. Dojin had assigned the sourdough starter to his head of security three years ago, on the logic that a man who could manage threat protocols for a sixty-member sleuth could manage a feeding schedule for a jar of fermented flour.

Reo had accepted the assignment with the same flat professionalism he brought to everything, maintained the culture on a precise twelve-hour cycle, and never once complained—though he’d started listing “sourdough maintenance” on his monthly security reports under“miscellaneous operations,” which Dojin suspected was a protest.

But Dojin still checked. Every morning he was in the den, he opened the jar, inspected the rise, noted the smell. Because Gerald was seven years of continuous culture and that was commitment, and because an alpha who didn’t personally verify the things he’d delegated was an alpha waiting to be surprised.

He returned Gerald to the refrigerator and texted Maren, the sleuth’s den manager, who ran the kitchen crew the way Reo ran security—with precision, loyalty, and zero tolerance for substandard results.

The main kitchen occupied the heart of the floor two levels down—the gathering place of Keiser Tower, where the communal tables seated the full sleuth and the professional-grade equipment could service sixty bears and still produce a meal worth eating.

Full spread by six. Double the bacon. Eggs over-hard for Vuzen—he’s coming for quarterly review and I don’t need him complaining about yolks on top of everything else.

Maren’s reply arrived in four seconds:Already on it. Potatoes are in. Coffee’s brewing. You coming down to supervise or can I do my job?

Do your job. I’ll be in the council room by eight.

Copy. Tell Reo Gerald’s looking a little sluggish. Might need a warmer spot in the fridge.