The room fell silent.

Not the heavy, mythic hush of the Reincarnation Realm—this was smaller, meaner, the silence of cheap walls and men who hadn’t expected resistance.

Three figures stood between the peeling sofa and the narrow door. Leather jackets. Gold chains. Smiles sharpened by habit. One of them held a ledger; another toyed with a baton he hadn’t bothered to hide. Their eyes slid from Jared’s blood-smeared face to the trembling woman behind him.

His mother.

Her hair had gone mostly gray since the last time he remembered seeing it. Not dignified gray—tired gray. The kind that came from nights without sleep and mornings that asked for money she didn’t have. When she saw Jared, her breath hitched, halfway between relief and fear.

“Jared?” Her voice wavered, like she wasn’t sure saying his name would make him real. “Why are you here? You shouldn’t be here—go, go now—”

One of the men laughed, a short bark. “Ah. So this is the son.” He looked Jared up and down, unimpressed. “Skinny. Thought you’d be bigger, the way she talks about you.”