Her eyes moved over me: coat, bag, boots, the rifle strapped across my back. She lingered on Karl’s pistol at my side.

“Name,” she said.

“Alexander Colt,” I answered. My mouth felt dry.

“Where from, Alexander Colt?” she asked.

“Berlin Safe Zone,” I said. “Originally.”

Something shifted in her face. Recognition, but no surprise.

The man gave a short, quiet comment in German, aimed at her, not at me.

She didn’t answer him. Her attention stayed on me.

“You walked,” she said. It wasn’t really a question. “Or they put you out?”

“I walked,” I said.

It felt strange, saying it out here. Behind the walls, leaving had been an idea. Out here, it sounded more like a confession.

“Why?” she asked.

A hundred reasons pushed at my throat. The walls. The numbers. The air that never changed. The way the stories I read never lined up with the days I woke into.

None of that belonged here. Not with rifles on me.

“I wanted out,” I said finally. “I wanted to see what was outside.”

Her eyes narrowed just a fraction.