Tess steps back when he moves, and she stays rooted to the floor. Let him pace. Her anger simmers low in her belly. The shift from bountiful summers to sparing and scraping winters always feels hard, but every year they get a little harder. His rage digs into the soft, fleshy part of her that has her eyes on spring, when they don't starve, when they're be so flush that she can pay people in ration cards for even the littlest thing. The easy times, the times where she can lord over everyone, black market queen, like she isn't just another smuggler scraping to get by.

He asks how they'll pay and she doesn't know, but she thinks she'll figure it out before there are consequences. It's always a rude reality check when he doesn't think so.

"He's in the East district, Joel, FEDRA is all over there right now, I checked myself," she says. She feels midway between pacifying and giving orders. She loves his rage when she's watching him do irreversible damage to some asshole's rotator cuff, especially when said asshole put his hands on her. She feels like the master of it then, but only then; when he starts toeing the line the rage shouldn't cross, the line between them, that's when she gets her hackles up.

She adds, cold and calm, hands on her hips: "These guys are FEDRA, so they blend right in. I'll pay them when the shipment comes in."

It should all work out. And if it doesn't, she'll figure that out, too.