The Two Women Share One Badge

Yena had already stepped away from the front line when the Bureau dragged her back with a file full of bad records and worse questions. She trained new hunters now. She taught them how to move, how to watch a door, and how to stay alive when a gate shook the floor. Then she met Mira, a young hunter whose readings matched her own in a way that made every test fail. The Bureau called it a reversed guide pair. Yena knew only that the girl looked frightened, furious, and tired in the same breath. When a guild trap put Yena in the path of a bug-tier monster under the gate office garage, she saw how badly the people in charge were willing to use her. The old wound in her chest cracked open again, ...