Page 309 of Light Leech

“It was in the Red District, right?” Kyo said.

Koro swirled her drink in her hand, the ice clinking against the glass like subtle chimes. “Still doesn’t excuse the footage they should’ve had.”

“Did the assailants delete the footage or did you?” Kao asked.

“I don’t know, justice wasn’t my focus then. Survival was all that mattered. Now that I’m on the other side, I can’t find anything about the people who did it.”

“Then what happened?”

“I think Crimson Phantom had something to do with it.

Koro scoffed. “I thought they backed off our market after their last flop?”

Naoma shrugged. “Apparently they have some new artists lined up, but they haven’t produced much yet. That being said, their sabotage hit them just as bad. Glowbones and other fiends in the Red swarmed us, but Petya actually helped me out of there.”

Kao ripped her glowing drink towards me. “So what brought you there?”

Naoma spoke for me. “He was a social strategist visiting to oversee the meeting between rival producers. He entered on neutral ground, but you can see that he chose a side.”

“But you’re not really Reef anymore.”

“Not really?” Kyo said. “Not at all. You’ve been off the grid, girl. Without weekly songs and some random Nichley project in Arabasia, people have been asking us too many questions that we can’t answer.”

Koro hissed after a sip. “Not gonna lie, Naoma. We all saw you as a friend but after disappearing without a word, we wondered what that meant.”

Kyo touched Naoma’s hand. “I was more worried about your well-being.”

Kao nodded. “That being said, we had a lot of thoughts when you came to see us.”

“Right during one of our largest pop-ups,” Koro said.

“We were near the end anyway.”

“Oh, I’m not complaining. I was sick of it by then.”

“So what did you want from us?” Kyo asked. “Just friend stuff, right?”

Koro held a finger up. “I want the rest of the story first.”

Naoma nodded. “Anton died, as far as I know, as well as most of our crew. There was something… other than just glowbones. Not sure how to describe it, but it was a massacre.“ She glanced at me. “Petya and some of his friends saved me. Then, I didn’t really know what to do. Without Anton, I didn’t have ties to Reef.”

“So you did a little soul searching?” Kyo lifted her glass to her lips, then paused before taking a drink. “Wait, where are you from, again?”

“It’s kind of private.”

“Kind of?”

“I’d rather not talk about it, but yes, I wanted to see what life was like without this being the center of it. I got pulled into the Nichley job because of an agent that I have since parted ways with.”

“So you’re just out doing your own thing now?” Kao asked.

“Independent artists are failures,” Koro said.

Naoma shook her head. “I used to think so, but I couldn’t agree less.”

“How so?”

I watched Naoma with interest in her answer. It shouldn’t have surprised me that she had invested so much thought into this besides what we had discussed. Everything was natural and not an obvious lie. Most of it was the truth, despite the involvement of Crimson Phantom. I found my muscles relaxing and my grip on her hand softening. I no longer had to work to trust her. It came with the trust she gave me.