BETWEEN THE LINES

Ashen Treat
An Original Ashen Program Vignette
© October 31st, 2025 by JKLucas, All Rights Reserved

Ashen Treat

Tabor Heights had collected more headlines than mail this year. On the ridge above the old rail cut, porches wore motion lights like bandages. Two shootings everyone could name, a dozen little fires nobody could, and the rotating circus of “short-term rentals” that, to anyone paying attention, were drug houses on weekly shifts. And where drugs ran prolific, weapons and trouble ran copiously. Everybody in Tabor Heights knew that math…and everyone in the city knew it too. Kids still lived here in abundance…always had…but the maps shaded the blocks orange to red and told people to pick another route.

That was exactly why Calder Luc pointed his boots there on Halloween. Veteran Ashen mostly worked that way…self-directed unless a task or investigation needed a specific pair of hands. Work was not really assigned so much as it simply showed up. An Ashen could pick and choose, sure, but they did not pass the ugly jobs…no one even thought to. If it was ugly, it got snapped up quick…those were the ones that needed Ashen hands to land right.

Before he stepped out, he opened OpsGrid on his slate and filed a Shadow Route. “Tabor Heights (trick-or-treat corridors - Maple–Grant loop)”…with breadcrumb tracking and heartbeat enabled on five-minute pings. Ops could pull his dot any time. If he went dark, the relay would trigger a scaled escalation.

He liked this night. The one night when monsters crowded the sidewalks and no one flinched at a dark silhouette with a hard face. He could hide in plain sight…or at least close enough to feel human about it.

He kept the hood of his uniform jacket down as he reached the corner store…Halloween gave him cover among the masks and painted faces. The chest-cam on his right breast showed a low red status light, the credentials sat on his left, where observant eyes could read them readily. Palms before proof. Kids first…especially this night. Optics matter.

The block smelled like pumpkin guts and cheap fog fluid. Porch skeletons clicked in a breeze. A school of costumes surged past…ninjas, a witch, a bumblebee with lopsided wings, and a dinosaur whose tail left a tiny breadcrumb trail of wrappers, hoping no one would notice he had started the sugar party early.

Cal watched and noted they had already been at it when they passed him…half a loop in, judging by the bulging bags. And the woman who should have been leading was trailing now, losing ground with every porch. Pregnant, breath shortened, tote chewing into her shoulder. Cal read the slip in the line and the rising angst. She needed help. He would have to slow the pace and quietly move to the front and run the route.

She clocked Cal’s outline, did the mental math…uniform, that impossible stillness…and the cam and credentials. Too real to fake. She recognized him at once…a true Ashen, not a holiday costume. She gave him the tight smile of someone outnumbered by tiny pirates.

“Please tell me you’re with us,” she said, lightheartedly, but not quite joking.

“Absolutely, I’m with you,” Cal said, warm and simple. He tipped his head to the kids. “Where have you guys been? I’ve been waiting for you.”

The witch peered up. “Your costume is so cool.” The words stretched…Sooooo cooool.

“Thanks,” Cal said. “Here’s the deal…we stick together and don’t wander. Stay close.”

A boy in a plastic vampire mask reached a careful hand toward Cal’s jawline. “Can I feel it?”

Cal hesitated, thinking of the hood, and dismissed the thought, for now. “Not the mask,” he said, gentle. He slipped off his right glove, offered two fingers. “But you can say ‘hi’ like this.”

The vampire touched his fingers like they might hum. Several more hands followed, two fingers each, seeking his touch, giggling as if it were a secret spell. When they had all had their turn, Cal reseated his glove and lifted his hood…habit more than anything…and felt the street grow a touch quieter embraced in its familiar shadow.

“Okay,” the woman said, fastening a stray cape. “I’m Elizabeth. Elizabeth Wheaton. I got volunteered because everyone else has a blowout costume party and, well…” she glanced at her belly. “No cocktails for me.”

“I’m happy to help,” Cal said. “I can be an extra set of hands.” He raised his voice for the pack. “Pair up. Bee with dinosaur…one tall monster, one little monster. Hold hands when we cross.” The pack reshuffled without fuss…twelve into six hand-locked pairs.

They had barely started together when a car nicer than the neighborhood warranted rolled by, low and glossy, windows limo-tinted so the street bounced back at itself. Bass thumped…lyrics too loud and too dirty at kid-height. It idled in front of a dark house Cal had already marked as a “no-visit”. He angled his position slightly at the front of the line, widened his stance until he filled the lane, and turned just enough for the nearest porch light to illuminate his full frame…poised, but palms out. Not angry. Present. Authority, but not a threat.

“Not tonight,” he pled under his breath, reactively readying himself to respond if a threat arose. The kids quieted like a flock, unconsciously sensing Cal tense. After a few seconds the thump cut, the car drifted forward and turned off onto Grant, taillights dimming, and the kids resumed their excited banter.

“Thanks,” Elizabeth whispered. “I don’t know how I thought I could do this in this condition. I just didn’t want them to miss Halloween…it’s such a high point every year for them.”

“You’re buying minutes,” Cal said. “They’re cheap right now, and they turn into the kind of memories kids spend without noticing. Tonight they’ll take them for granted…tomorrow…weeks…years from now, they’ll be priceless.”

They moved. Doorbells, squeals, the dinosaur continuing to pretend not to notice the trail he’d made. Cal braced little elbows so kids could catch proffered loot, retied a frog’s sneaker without ceremony, and kept the pack off the street edge with two fingers extended like a crossing guard’s wand.

At about the seventh house, a cluster of teenagers in hockey masks were testing the fuse on a bundle of bottle rockets in a jack-o’-lantern’s mouth. Cal didn’t speak at first. He let the cam sit quiet on his right breast and kept his face level under the hood, letting silence do the work.

“We’re not lighting ’em,” one teen offered, chin tilted…defiant, testing.

“Let the little ones have the sidewalk,” Cal said, voice mild. “Take your fireworks to the cul-de-sac, after midnight, after the candy’s put away. Just be safe, whatever you decide to do.”

They held his gaze another beat, still defiant. Cal shifted a half-step so the streetlight threw a glimpse of his features under the hood. The teens’ eyes flicked from him to the line of kids behind…costumes, candy bags, the steady way he stood. They clocked what he was after a few seconds. Not a costume. The lighter disappeared. They packed the rockets, muttered “yeah…okay,” and drifted like fog to the far side of the yard.

They hit a stretch where two streetlights were dead and a third blinked like a tired eye, mostly dark. Cal unclipped a Program-issued flashlight and thumbed it on. The beam punched a clean white circle across the asphalt, far brighter than its size suggested.

Squeals went up…

“Can I hold it?”

“Me next!”

“Please?”

“Tempting,” Cal said, widening the focus of the beam and painting the crosswalk while he counted heads. “But this one’s for adults only. Your job is to keep your capes and tails inside the circle.”

They kept to the light like it was a game, delighted to stay inside the clear edge.

A few doors later, a Labrador launched into the yard, barking, loud, friendly…too much. The pack froze. Cal dropped into an easy crouch, made himself a little larger between the kids and the dog, palms open to the owner jogging after with a crinkling bag of candy under one arm. Clips, apologies, leash on.

“It’s fine,” Cal said. “He wants to do his job too. I know he was just saying ‘Hello’.”

The yellow dog grinned at the pack…hands already half-raised, waiting for permission.

“Can we pet him?”

“Is he friendly?”

“Fluffy!”

“Oh, she is so cute!”

The owner nodded, breath still up. “Yeah, he’s friendly.”

The Lab made rounds like an inspector, nose to tiny fingers, then into each candy bag, tail thumping approval at every stop…with the owner making a deposit into each candy bag after the dog’s inspection…plop-plop-plop…down the line

“This is Yoda,” the owner said. “He’s here for attention and pets from small humans.”

Petting done. Bags up. The Lab sat like he’d clocked out. Cal nodded to the owner and turned the pack toward the next porch amidst a chorus from the children.

“Thank you.”

“Bye, Yoda.”

“Happy Halloween.”

“Be a good boy, Yoda.”

A small hand tugged at Cal’s sleeve before he could resume his lead, getting his attention.

“You are really Ashen,” a tiny voice breathed. The bumblebee…glitter on her cheeks…stared intently at the credentials and camera on his chest when he turned around, then moved to his face. “It is not a costume.”

“It’s a costume tonight,” Cal said, almost smiling. “We get one night too.”

They crossed at the long four-way, the one that always felt wider than it was. He set the beam down the lane and stood broadside, counting…one, two…ten, eleven…where was...he leaned toward Elizabeth.

“Vampire’s name?”

She blinked, then, “Jesse. My nephew.”

“Jesse! With us,” Cal called, friendly. A fog machine breathed and Jesse scuttled, emerging from the mist, mask askew, proud of not getting caught immediately…sort of.

“Thank you,” Elizabeth said again, softer now. “I really didn’t want them to miss this.”

“What’s your guess for tonight,” Cal asked, “how much candy before they turn feral?” He checked that box in his head…one normal question for the shift…quota met.

“They’re not already?” she deadpanned. “I’m sure they’ll sneak a bunch before bedtime…while they’re checking out what they got and sorting it all,” she said, half-laughing, shifting her tote.

The route bent toward the corner store. Elizabeth patted the tote. “Oh, crap. I almost forgot. I brought glow lights. I should’ve put these on before we started.”

She handed over a bag of small glow sticks. Cal cracked one to show the trick, looped the elastic strap around his left leg, just above his knee…“Like this” he said, “for extra style points”…then helped tie the rest. Necklaces, wrists, a few on elbows for comedy. They voted to tie the dinosaur’s halfway down his tail…the dinosaur agreed this was extremely cool and therefore, was law.

At a cul-de-sac dressed like a budget hayride, a pair of older kids in anime costumes Cal couldn’t identify were stuffing handfuls from an unattended bowl into backpacks. Cal drifted into their space and let silence do half the work, again. They clocked the cam, the hood, the posture.

“Sign says ‘take one’,” Cal said, not unkind.

They hesitated, then tipped some candy back, cheeks hot. “Sorry.”

“Leave enough for the little ones,” he said, chin-pointing at the glowing bumblebee. They nodded and peeled away, dignity intact.

By the final lit porch, Elizabeth’s tote rode visibly heavier on her shoulder, the witch was nodding sleepily between doors, the vampire had learned to push the mask up before stairs…and the bumblebee appeared to be unphased, offering trades of candy like a tiny broker on the floor of the stock exchange. Cal held the rail while feet thundered up and down, hands always where residents could see them without thinking to look.

At the sidewalk, the last mini-crisis arrived…blue-wrapped caramels, who got how many, and who got red. Cal knelt to the eye level of the two arguing children. “We’ll keep it fair. You pick one, then you pick two…then you pick two…back and forth until they’re gone.” They copied his breathing without knowing. The caramels divided like a small treaty. Nobody cried. Elizabeth mouthed a thank-you she did not have room to say aloud.

“Last house,” she said. “Then home. Then feet up… and maybe some Haagen-Dazs I don’t think my husband has found yet.”

“How far?”

“Three blocks,” she said. “Feels like a mile.”

“I’m happy to stay with you for the final stretch,” Cal said.

They moved one more time, slow now, gravity tugging at sugar and capes. The block quieted behind them. The boarded window at the corner felt less like a landmark and more like a page that would turn if enough quiet nights stacked on it.

At Elizabeth’s gate, the kids fanned out like sparrows, reinvigorated, already reliving their boldest doorbells. The dinosaur solemnly pressed a fun-size bar into Cal’s hand. “For you. Because your costume is the coolest.”

“It is not a costume,” the witch said, suddenly sure. “It is a uniform.”

“Tonight,” Cal said, “it gets to be both.”

“Thank you,” Cal added, briefly locking eyes with the dinosaur, and then turned and winked at the witch, as if they shared a secret.

He looked up to Elizabeth and mouthed, “Good luck…goodnight.”

Hands to her chest, she mouthed, “Thank you” back.

He tucked the bar into a small pocket beside a smooth river stone.

They said their final goodnights. Cal took the steps back to the still-busy loop of trick-or-treaters under a sky containing both cheap laser dots and real stars. The red status light on his cam stayed steady, small as a held breath.

Halfway down the block, it occurred to him…Elizabeth had never shown the telltale flinch. Not once. Was it the holiday?...the sanctioned horrors softening edges…or was she simply…not shocked by him? The thought felt like a thin, bright thread pulling toward something he had almost never considered…a day when he was just part of the crowd he worked to protect.

He pictured his younger self, small and awkward in a plastic mask he hadn’t chosen, wishing to be invisible in a line of doorbells. He pictured his mother picking the least-bent costume from the thrift store, his father counting bills, the two of them making the same quiet algebra Elizabeth had done tonight…how to give a kid a special night, even when the numbers and circumstances didn’t prioritize it. His memories now landed a little different with him, following his own revelation from earlier. Grateful. Appreciative now…years later.

At the corner he paused, looked back. The pack had vanished into a front room where someone had laid a blanket to protect the carpet from a candy storm. Laughter carried through the door like a distant radio. Genuine. Comforting.

He let that be the headline.

***

Calm Note — 31 Oct, 20:08–21:27

Route: 8 blocks (Maple–Grant loop)

Group: 12 minors + 1 adult (pregnant)

Minutes purchased: 79

Incidents averted: 4 (suspicious vehicle loitering - no contact; fireworks relocation; off-leash dog; candy-bowl raid)

Optics: palms visible; hood up post-greeting; cam status: functional – full-capture. Lighting: various streetlights out; Program flashlight deployed (adult-use only).

Safety aids: chem lights issued (wrist/neck/tail…yes, tail)

Child contact: two-finger greetings; glove removed for trust

Outcome: smiles high; volume moderate; entirely too much candy collected…stomach aches likely

Lesson logged: 3 blue caramels are worth 5 red ones; capes help, but adults help more…and sometimes, don’t flinch.

Author’s Note

This is the first vignette I’ve released in the Ashen Program world, and it feels right that it lands on Halloween. I love this night…the mayhem, the costumes, the underlying celebration of life through so many different types of costumes and imagery…the way neighborhoods briefly agree to be scary and whimsical at the same time. And it strikes me as the one time of year when an Ashen could move through the crowd and simply…blend. For Calder Luc, that means trading “shield, not sword” for glow sticks and candy math, and turning a sketchy loop into a pocket of ordinary joy for several little citizens.

If the story works, it’s because Halloween lets the hard edges soften and reminds us how quickly moments become treasured memories.

As always, thanks to my wife, whose steady encouragement and sharp support help me keep the heart of these stories where it belongs.

And thanks to my mom…my unofficial editor and tireless supporter…for the years of giving me as much Halloween as I wanted.

Happy Halloween!

JKLucas

Double
An Original Ashen Program Vignette
© April, 2026 by JKLucas, All Rights Reserved

Double

The service sector did not earn attention.

It lived between better things. Between lit streets and working docks. Between places people named and places they forgot. Cracked concrete, chain-link, shuttered roll-ups. Sound carried wrong. Light carried worse. Sodium lamps buzzed overhead like they resented the job.

Ops had tagged it quiet for the night. A thin slice of the map where nothing much was expected to go wrong, if the city felt like cooperating for a few hours.

Sarena Ward did not trust the city to cooperate.

She was already past end of shift.

The ask for the double had come in sideways. Another Ashen, voice kept light, details kept light, which meant the weight was somewhere just out of view. Sarena had not asked. She had caught enough to understand the shape of it. Something outside the Program. Something ordinary. Something worth protecting because it did not happen often.

So she stayed.

Veteran Ashen chose their own work more often than not. Ops did not assign so much as suggest. A nudge. A placement on the map that carried just enough intention to be understood.

This had been one of those.

A quiet sector. Out of the way. A place where nothing much was supposed to happen tonight.

Sarena had seen the suggestion for what it was.

Put Ward on the edge. Let the night pass without her finding something to provoke. Let the public keep their tempers. Let the paperwork stay light.

She had almost smiled when she accepted it.

She was not tired from the day. Not in any way that mattered. The Program had long since burned that kind of fatigue out of her in any conventional sense. But the idea of space…of a stretch of time where nothing pressed in and nobody needed anything from her…

That had its own appeal.

A girl like me,” she murmured, “can always make good use of a little me-time.”

* * *

She started on the ground.

And the sector reacted.

It always did.

An Ashen walking a public stretch of city was not invisible. It was the opposite. It was presence. Pressure. The kind of thing people felt before they understood it. Conversations shortened. Movements tightened. Eyes tracked without meaning to. Even the ones who did not know what they were looking at, knew something had entered the space that changed the rules.

Like walking through the woods.

The birds went quiet first. Then everything else followed.

Sarena felt it happen in real time. The small shifts. The narrowing of motion. The way the night stopped being itself and started being careful.

“Right,” she said softly. “All this for little ol’ me? That helps no one.”

If she stayed in the lane, nothing would happen. Not because nothing was there, but because nothing would risk showing itself while she was centered in the landscape.

So she stepped out of it.

The catwalk ran along the side of an old utility block, half-forgotten and rusted into the structure like an afterthought. Narrow. Elevated. Overlooked.

Perfect.

No one ever looked up.

Not the public. Not the ones moving from or toward things they should not be moving from or toward. Eyes stayed level. Forward. Down. The sky might as well not exist in places like this.

Sarena climbed, boots finding quiet holds, hands steady, no wasted motion. She settled into the high ground, back to concrete, silhouette broken by shadow and steel.

Then she went still.

Completely still.

Not waiting. Not watching.

Gone.

The sector breathed again.

Slowly at first. Then more.

Movement returned. Conversations resumed somewhere beyond her sightline. The place remembered how to be itself once the pressure lifted.

From above, she watched it come back to life.

“There you go,” she murmured. “Act natural.”

Her slate rested against her thigh, clipped in. Matte black drank what little light reached her.

Now she could see.

Nothing happened.

She watched it like it owed her an apology.

“Electric,” she said under her breath. “We’re all having a great time.”

The lamps hummed. Wind scraped paper along the fence. Somewhere, far enough to not matter, an engine turned over and moved on.

The scene held its rhythm.

Time slipped.

Then a van eased into the lane.

No rush. No lights. Just a quiet decision to be present.

White panel. Clean from a distance. Not clean up close. The kind of vehicle that passed through places like this without leaving much thought behind.

Sarena did not move.

It drifted to a stop midblock and held. Idled too long.

The driver checked his mirror. Then again. Not habit. Not nerves. Calibration.

“Commit,” she murmured. “You can do it. Shit or get off the damn pot.”

No second vehicle drew near. If she had to make the decision to move, no visible cover was near either.

The van’s loneliness was its own kind of loud.

A full minute after the van rolled to a stop the side door slid open.

Two men stepped out. One settled into the space like it belonged to him. The other tried on the posture and did not quite fill it.

“Confidence isn’t a jacket, little boy,” Sarena said softly. “You can’t just wear it and hope it looks good on you.”

They moved to the rear. Paused.

Then the third figure stepped down.

A woman.

No restraints. No visible injury. No comfort either.

She found the pavement, adjusted once, and stopped where they left her.

Placed.

Sarena’s expression did not change.

“Of course,” she said quietly.

The woman was built to disappear. Neutral clothes. Neutral posture. Hair pulled back for function, not style. No signal. No anchor.

She did not look at the men.

She did not look at the van.

She looked once. Toward the nearest way out.

A flicker. Instinct. Gone a second later, corrected like it had been a mistake.

That was enough.

Ward was still already…she went glacial.

Not waiting. Deciding.

Her slate woke. OpsGrid. A blank Shadow. The cursor blinked, patient, asking for a clean update.

She gave it a few words.

Stuck in a Double-watch. Service sector. I’m looking at a suspicious vehicle…why do bad guys always drive stupid beat up panel vans?

The cursor blinked back.

She watched the woman stand where she had been put.

Watched the younger man watch the older one.

Watched the driver check the mirror again.

“Yeah,” Ward decided. “No.”

She closed the slate with the update unsent.

The woman stood exactly where they'd left her.

Not scared. Not comfortable. Not free.

The younger one kept looking to the older one before he moved.

The driver kept checking mirrors nobody else was using.

Three people telling the same story in three different ways.

Ward had seen enough.

By the time Ops started asking questions, whatever this was would be gone.

By the time backup arrived, the answers would be gone with it.

And if she waited for proof, she'd be standing here all night watching something she knew she already understood.

“Nope.”

The word barely left her lips.

One hand moved automatically across her equipment. Radio. Light. Sidearm. Blade. Habit more than thought.

Everything where it belonged.

One breath in.

One breath out.

Then she stepped off the catwalk.

Ten feet. Maybe a little more. She landed quiet. Knees took it. Boots found a patch of concrete that cooperated just enough.

She walked into the situation like it belonged to her.

For the moment, it did.

The older man clocked her first. The younger followed a beat late. The driver stayed seated, head turning slow, controlled.

Ward didn’t stop until the distance worked in her favor.

“Evening fellas.”

It did not need to carry.

No one answered.

She let the silence do its job.

“I’m going to give you the courtesy of one chance,” she said, almost polite, “to explain why this looks exactly like what it looks like.”

The younger man blinked. The older one stepped forward, measured.

“We’re making a drop,” he said. “Nothing illegal about helping move people around.”

“People move themselves,” Ward said. “That’s generally how it works.”

The woman did not look at her.

The driver’s grip shifted on the wheel.

The younger man checked the woman, then the older one. Not for her. For permission.

Ward filed it.

“Any paperwork required for your moving of people?” she asked.

“We don’t need to show you anything.”

“That’s an answer,” she said. “It’s not a very good one though.”

She took a step closer.

“Here’s where you decide how this goes. You can keep talking, which I would not recommend, or you can stop and cooperate.”

The younger man moved.

Not a strike. Not yet. Just the beginning of one.

Ward's eyes flicked once to the woman.

Nothing.

The glance took less than a heartbeat. Long enough to confirm the woman was not about to become part of the problem. Not nearly long enough to lose track of the one who already was.

“Don't.”

He did.

She cut the motion at the root. Lead hand knocked his wrist off line. Rear hand snapped across his face and took his balance with it. His posture broke. She stepped through the angle he gave her and drove a tight shot into his center, tilting his hip carriage. Air left him. She folded him the rest of the way with a downward check and let the ground take him.

The older man came in better. Lower. Faster. Trying to crowd her space and turn it into a contest of weight and mass.

Ward stepped off the line, up the circle, and let him spend his charge on empty air. She extended a palm to the side of his head and guided it just far enough off target to open a different angle. As he passed, the open hand folded into a hammer that drove into his ribs. His breath hitched. She clipped his base, checked high under his arm, and pushed his head over the corner he could not hold. He spiraled through the air, feet up, head down, hit hard, and stayed there.

The driver’s door opened.

Ward turned just enough.

“Really? I wouldn’t.”

He froze.

A second held.

Then he reached back into the van.

Ward closed the gap in two steps, muttering to herself, “Why do you guys always…”

Her palm drove the door back into him with a clean, final sound.

“Stay, boy.”

The driver's eyes rolled somewhere behind the bridge of his nose and he collapsed back into the seat.

He stayed.

The scene settled.

Three men. One trying to breathe. One trying to understand where his footing went. One halfway out of a van, reconsidering everything.

Sarena straightened.

Her attention moved from the men.

She looked at the woman.

Something snagged.

Not the scene. Not the van or the men or the lane or anything that belonged to the last five minutes. Something older than that. Sarena held the woman's face in her attention for a half-beat longer than the moment asked for, working it the way you worked a word you almost had. A different context. A different frame around the same features. Somewhere. Some when.

The woman stared back.

Blank as a wall.

Nothing offered. Nothing withheld. Just careful, practiced stillness.

The thread slipped away.

Damn it.

Sarena almost had it.

A place. A conversation. A report. Something.

Then it was gone.

The woman gave her nothing.

Sarena knew there was something there. Not enough to catch. Not enough to name. Just enough to be annoying.

She let it go.

For now.

Up close, nothing else called attention. No marks. No obvious tells. Just that careful stillness. That absence remained.

Sarena stepped back. Gave her room.

“You can go.”

No movement.

“Anywhere,” Sarena added. “That includes with me, or away from me.”

A beat.

“Your choice,” she finished.

The woman’s eyes shifted.

Not to the men. Not to the van.

To the street. To the dark.

She took a step. Careful. Testing.

Sarena did not move.

Another step. Then another.

Each one a little more certain than the last.

She did not run. Did not look back. She left.

Sarena watched until the dark took her.

Then she turned.

The older man met her eyes. Anger there. Something under it.

“Do you even know what you just interrupted?”

Sarena considered him.

“No,” she said. “And I’m not likely to care too much. Does that make me a bad person?”

She crouched for a search. Quick. Efficient. Phones. Keys. A knife that would not have helped.

“Stay down,” she said, rising. “Think about your life choices.”

She stepped away. Gave them just enough space to breathe.

Her slate lit her hand again.

OpsGrid. A blank Shadow. The cursor blinked, still patient, asking for a clean update.

She typed.

Double-watch. Service sector. Suspicious transfer. Three detained and not happy about it. One civilian present at initial contact. No visible restraints. No immediate indicators of coercion. Subject skedaddled from the scene of her own volition.

She paused.

Looked up at the empty lane.

Then back down.

Further details…who knows?

She sent it.

The system would take it. File it. Try to make it neat. It would not be.

Sarena locked the slate.

A quiet sector. A clean night. A place where nothing much was supposed to happen.

Ops had tried to give her space.

She glanced once more at the street, the van, the men still learning lessons the hard way.

“Me time,” she said.

Then, softer, “What more could a girl want?”

Author’s Note

I love this character.

There’s something deeply satisfying about a “sassy” Ashen. Someone who doesn’t just endure the world as it is, but presses against it. Tests it. Sees where it bends…and where it breaks.

Sarena Ward is strong, independent, and entirely at ease with who she is. She knows what she’s willing to put up with. More importantly, she knows what she’s not. And so far, she hasn’t found a limit to her ability to deal with the latter.

That makes her fun to write.

Right now, Sarena Ward exists as a supporting character in the larger Ashen world. But this vignette is a bit of a test. A shallow end. A chance to see if she holds the water as a central figure. If she does…there may be more of her ahead.

What do you think, dear reader?

As always, I owe a debt I can never fully repay to my wife. Thank you for your patience with my late-night dreaming and typing. For your constant support, and for your quiet, steady drive to make us both better. Your support is without compare, and I’m certain I wouldn’t be the man I am today without you.

One more note, perhaps a revealing one.

The longer I write, the more I realize that my own personal Journey through Kenpo has quietly worked its way into these stories. Not just into the techniques or the action, but into the characters themselves.

Sarena Ward is a good example of that. Her confidence, her independence, her willingness to stand her ground, and perhaps even a little of her sharp tongue all owe something to the Art and to the extraordinary people I’ve been privileged to meet through it.

Kenpo has given me lessons in honor, integrity, service, humility, and perseverance. It has also introduced me to some truly remarkable people and, yes, maybe a little bit of sass too. Over time, pieces of those lessons, experiences, and personalities have found their way into the Ashen world.

Whether I intended it or not, part of my own Kenpo Journey is written into Sarena Ward.

Until next time…

J…