Reese grew up in District 9’s concrete mid-hives where stairwells sing and walls remember. She learned young that survival isn’t victory—it’s refusal. The badge came later, after she’d already memorized the city’s pressure points and the cadence of a lock that’s been picked one too many times.
She carries ghosts from cases that never closed, and follows threads no one else can see—reflections in steel, echoes in transit data, the way a hallway hum changes when a door forgets to latch. Birch is the one person who doesn’t flinch when Reese names the price of looking.
She doesn’t promise to save everyone. She promises consequence. When Reese arrives, rooms recalculate.
The city is a ledger. It adds quietly and subtracts loudly. Reese isn’t interested in balance—she’s interested in names turning up alive. When that fails, she writes the truth where it can’t be erased.
If you ask her why the late nights never stop, she’ll say the same thing every time: “Because the door didn’t open when it should have.” And because she remembers the exact sound of that silence.