Chapter 46
Iset the charges every twenty-three floors, the entire length of the building’s spine.
Twenty-three. Forty-six. Sixty-nine. Ninety-two. One-fifteen. One-thirty-eight. One-sixty-one.
Clean. Even. Fatal.
Now all that’s left is to get to the top. Set them off and bring this beast down.
The elevator hums as it climbs, smooth until it isn’t.
It stops short. I push the button for the top floor but, no.
ACCESS RESTRICTED.
Of course it is.
The display tells me I’ve got three floors left to climb, and no amount of glaring is going to convince the system otherwise. I step out and head for the stairwell, boots heavy, side screaming where the bandage is already soaked through.
I start up.
“How many more are coming into the building?” I ask. “Like… a lot?”
Grim exhales. “Define a lot.”
“More than the Onryō Forty-Nine.”
There’s a pause. “Whoa. Was there really forty-nine of them?”
“I didn’t exactly count.”
“That’s awesome. But yeah—there’s a shit ton more headed your way. Like, actively trying to crawl up your ass.”
“What levels?”
“…A lot of them.”
I sigh. “You’re not helping very much.”
“Saint,” Grim says in my ear, suddenly sharp. “I think I found who you’re looking for.”
I keep climbing. “The shoe?”
“Yeah. Sending images over now.”
My earpiece crackles as data crawls in like it’s coming by carrier pigeon. I stop on the landing and wait.
And wait.
The images finally load, blocky and useless, all pixels and shadows.
I squint at them. “Damn. The service in here sucks.” My boot hits the next step and I resume my trek upward.
“Can you get another phone?” Grim asks.
I laugh, breathless. “Yeah. Because there’s a fucking T-Mobile up here right next to the manis and pedis.”
Right on cue, a door bangs open above me.
Footsteps pound down the stairs, fast and sloppy.
“You’re dead, bitch!” a man screams, voice cracking with terror and bravado. “You’re fucking dead!”
I don’t stop moving.
I reach into my boot, pull my knife, and hurl it up the stairwell without breaking stride.
It hits him right in the eye.
He drops instantly, momentum carrying him forward. His body tumbles down the stairs, thudding and rolling until it comes to rest at my feet, knife buried almost to the hilt in his skull.
“Fucking gross.”
I crouch and pat his pockets. Phone. Wallet. Useless gun.
“But hey,” I mutter, pulling the phone free. “He has a phone.”
“Score!” Grim says. “Can you unlock it?”
I hold it up. Face ID needed. I’m about tired of all these restrictions. Doesn’t the universe know I’m trying to exact my revenge?
I grimace. “Let’s see if this works.”
I tilt the phone toward his face and magically it unlocks.
I blink. “…Wow. Didn’t expect that.”
“I’m switching you over,” Grim says quickly.
“What does that—”
My earpiece clicks, then reconnects with a cleaner tone. The phone in my hand rings.
I answer it automatically. “Hello?”
“Why are you saying hello like you think it could be a telemarketer?” Grim says.
I snort. “Just shut up and send the pictures.”
“Fine,” he says. “Hitting send now.”
At that exact second, the building makes a sound I don’t like.
A deep, mechanical click reverberates through the stairwell.
The lights die.
The phone in my hand goes black.
Everything goes silent except for my breathing.
“…Grim?” I say.
Nothing.
I stare at the dead phone, then at the darkness pressing in around me.
“Well,” I mutter, straightening. “That’s bad timing.”
Because now the power’s out.
And I really, really want to get out of this fucking stairwell.
And that’s how I ended up here—at the top of the world’s tallest building, a sniper rifle to my head, and a smug bastard who’s been living jealous in my shadow for years breathing heavy down my back.
“Even now,” Tex says, pressing the barrel harder, “with a gun to your head and every assassin in the world climbing this tower to claim your bounty, you still can’t admit you made a mistake.”
I smile.
“That’s what happens when your balls are bigger than your brain. You forget one simple little detail.”
“And what’s that?”
“That I’m Saint motherfucking James,” I say. “And I don’t make mistakes.”
I slam the wire.
The building answers with a furious groan, steel screaming as the first detonation blooms far below us. Then another. Then another. The explosions roll upward through the tower like a dying heartbeat, fast and relentless.
Tex swears as the floor shudders beneath our feet, the vibration throwing his balance just enough to matter.
“I’ve got about twenty seconds to get out of here,” I tell him, turning my head just enough to grin.
“But that’s plenty of time to kill you.”
I kick sideways hard.
The rifle jerks. He fires, missing me by inches as the shot blows out the window beside us. Glass detonates into the night, wind roaring in, ripping at my clothes and dragging smoke toward the open void.
He swings the rifle back up.
I’m already moving.
I crash into him, knock the barrel aside, and wrench the weapon from his hands. It skids across the floor and disappears into the darkness as another explosion rocks the building, closer now. Too close.
We go at each other bare-handed.
He lands a punch. I land two.
My knuckles split his lip. His elbow catches my ribs. I feel something crack but keep moving, driving him back toward the gutted framework as the floor tilts under us.
The building is coming apart.
“If we’re dying,” he snarls, pulling a knife. “You’re going first.”
He slashes. I dodge. The blade kisses the strap of my book bag, slicing partway through it.
I growl and slam my forehead into his face.
He swings a wood end table with everything he’s got. I make myself smaller and it shatters against the wall next to me. Then, he lunges from behind, looping something rough and fast around my neck—a rope, cable, something scavenged from nearby.
It tightens.
Stars bloom at the edges of my vision as I jam my fingers between the rope and my skin, fighting for space, for air. The tower shudders again, a massive detonation ripping through the levels just below us. The floor drops an inch.
We’re out of time.
I rock back into him once.
Twice.
Then plant my feet and shove off a metal cabinet with everything I have.
We go airborne together.
The night explodes around us as we sail out through the shattered window, the screaming skyscraper behind us folding in on itself, finally admitting defeat.
And gravity takes over.
He clings to me as we fall, fingers digging into my jacket, his breath hot and panicked.
“You stupid bitch,” he snarls, spittle flying. “I’m going to make sure you die before we hit the ground.”
Wind screams around us, ripping the air from my lungs, tearing the city into a blur of lights and glass and rushing death.
I bare my teeth at him. “I’ve got a better idea.”
I grab the cord and loop it around my hips, hands moving fast despite the chaos. Knot tight. No hesitation. Then I swing the loose length up and around his neck once.
Twice.
Three times.
His eyes go wide as realization finally catches up.
“It’s about time you fucking died,” I growl at him. “Asshole.”
I drive my elbow into his face.
Bone cracks. His nose explodes. Blood sprays and vanishes into the wind as I hammer him again, and again, splitting his brow. I dig both thumbs into his eyes, grunting through my teeth, until he’s clawing at nothing and I kick.
He falls and I rip the cord to my parachute hard.
My book bag jerks violently as the chute deploys, catching wind with a brutal yank that rips a scream from my throat and wrenches my spine. The rope around my hips goes taut—I scream at the agony in my side—and Tex’s neck snaps with a wet, final sound.
He goes limp instantly.
Dead weight.
Too much dead weight.
The strap he sliced earlier starts to tear, fibers screaming under the strain. I reach for my multitool and realize I can’t get to it. My bag. My cut arm. The wind won’t let me.
“F-f-fuck.”
The strap gives another inch.
I start to slide out of the harness, heart slamming into my throat. I grab the remaining strap with both hands and cling to it as the world spins.
Below me, the building finally gives up.
The tower collapses in on itself, folding like a dying animal, floors pancaking in a roar of smoke and fire and screaming steel. I hang there, spinning slowly, watching it fall.
“Holy shit.” I pant, watching it in disbelief. Knowing the assassins that ran in there to cash in on the bounty of Saint James died, knowing it was me that brought them all down in the end.
Then the chute catches a bad current.
I’m yanked sideways, dragged screaming through the Dubai skyline, glass flashing past far too close. Tex’s body slams face-first into a building, bounces, then hits it again with a meaty thud.
The wind shifts.
The Kurohana Palace rushes into view.
“Hold on,” I mutter to myself. Pulling up and finally fixing the single strap in the crook of my elbow. My second hand, gripping my wrist with everything I have. “Just hold on.”
Tex’s body bangs into another building, then another, leaving a smeared red trail across pristine glass as he slides along it like the world’s worst mural.
“That’s fucking disgusting.”
We’re dropping fast now.
The ground surges up.
My eyes dart, calculating, already bracing for impact. I don’t see an immediate way to die.
Which means it’s absolutely waiting.
Tex’s body slams into an SUV with a crunch of metal and bone, then drags along the asphalt, sparks flying as it slows me just enough to matter.
“Oh. Oh shit.”
I lift my legs just in time to clear a massive mound of camel poop.
Tex doesn’t.
His corpse slides face-first straight into it, disappearing in a wet, humiliating splatter.
I snort despite myself.
“Now, that is fucking beautiful.”
The chute finally collapses enough to dump me hard onto the pavement, rolling, bruising, but alive.
I lie there for a second, staring at the night sky, chest heaving, body screaming, city sirens beginning to rise in the distance.
The building is gone.
Tex is dead.
And for reasons I will laugh about for the rest of my life—
he’s also covered in camel shit.
I close my eyes and laugh.
Just a little.
But the itch between my shoulders doesn’t fade.
Because this isn’t over. Not yet.
I force myself upright, every muscle protesting, and stagger to my feet. My side burns. Blood drips down my hip and soaks my pants.
I don’t care.
There’s still someone that set this in motion who didn’t climb that tower. Didn’t bleed for it. Didn’t fall screaming through the night.
They’re still out there.
And I know they’re waiting.
I roll my shoulder, wince, and start moving before anyone can decide I’m a problem they want to contain.
Because I didn’t come all this way just to survive.
I came to finish this.