Chapter 3 #2
Pain explodes through my core, white-hot and nauseating.
My knees hit the rooftop hard, skin tearing through denim.
I retch, tasting bile and blood—coppery tang coating my teeth.
The night air burns my throat as I fight for breath that won’t come.
Grit digs into my kneecaps, sharp edges cutting through fabric.
“Search her.”
Hands pat me down—invasive, violating, checking every pocket, every seam. They find the decoy USB in my bra immediately, fingers rough against my ribs, against my breasts, taking liberties that make my skin crawl.
“The copies.”
Blood pools in my mouth. I spit, watching red splatter across his Italian leather shoes.
His boot connects with my ribs.
The crack echoes across the rooftop. White fire spreads through my chest. The pain is so sharp it steals thought, reduces everything to sensation and survival.
“Pain is remarkably persuasive, Ms. Singh.” He kneels, gripping my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. His eyes are gray, empty as a winter sky. His breath is mint-fresh—grotesque contrast to the violence. “The copies. Where?”
The stocky one hauls me upright. The movement sends lightning through my bruised ribs.
City lights blur through tears I refuse to acknowledge.
Wind cuts through my torn clothes, raising goose bumps, making me shiver.
Cold air stings the cuts on my palms, my thigh, every wound a separate chorus of pain.
The third man—younger, nervous—shifts near the roof’s edge. “We should hurry. Cops could—”
“The cops aren’t coming.” The leader presses his suppressor against my forehead. The metal is cold, a perfect circle of pressure promising oblivion. “Last chance. The copies.”
My throat muscles seize. My mouth works soundlessly. Terror has stolen my voice completely. No sound emerges, not even a wheeze. Just silent opening and closing like a dying fish gasping for water.
“Wrong answer.”
The suppressor swings away from my head toward my knee. I close my eyes. As if that will change the outcome. As if not seeing will make it hurt less.
But then, something wet and warm spatters across my face.
The grip on my arms goes slack. I open my eyes. The third man by the roof’s edge—the nervous one—has a neat hole in his forehead. Perfect circle, like someone drew it there with a marker. He topples backward without a sound, already dead before he hits.
“Contact—” The leader spins toward the shadows, weapon raised.
The stocky one shoves me aside, reaching for his sidearm.
His head snaps back. The back of his skull explodes outward in a spray of blood, brain matter, and bone fragments.
He drops, his weight clipping my shoulder as he falls.
Hot blood soaks through my shirt, sticky and thick.
The smell hits—copper and meat and something organic and wrong, nauseating in its intimacy.
The leader fires three times at the darkness. Desperate. Wild.
A shape emerges from shadow—tall, moving with controlled violence. The leader swings his weapon around, but the man is already there, one hand deflecting the gun while driving an elbow into the leader’s throat.
The leader staggers back, gasping. They trade blows faster than I can track. The shadow moves like water, each strike precise, economical. No wasted motion.
Defense becomes offense, then becomes defense again in a fluid dance of violence.
The leader pulls a knife. Steel catches city light, blade gleaming.
The man shifts, catches the leader’s wrist, twists sharply.
The wet snap of breaking bone fills the air—a sharp crack like a branch breaking.
The knife clatters across the surface. In the same fluid motion, he drives his knee into the leader’s solar plexus, then brings his elbow down on the back of his neck.
The leader crumples. Doesn’t move.
Three men down.
Maybe fifteen seconds total.
The man turns to me. Light catches his face—angular features, dark stubble, eyes that catalog everything in one sweep. He’s breathing normally, like he just finished a casual jog instead of killing three people.
“Talia Singh?” His voice is deep, controlled.
Barely more than a whisper. “Statistical Probability.” He says it with emphasis, and it takes me a while to figure out why he would say those words right now.
Then it hits, what the man on the phone said.
The code word. I’m supposed to respond, but my voice has fled.
I nod, mute. My voice is a dead thing in my throat.
“Jonah Jackson. Cerberus.” He extends a hand. “We need to move. Now.”
I stare at his hand. Blood-slicked, strong, steady. I take it. His grip is solid, warm, steady against my shaking. Calloused palms. Strong fingers that know exactly how much pressure to apply.
“Can you walk?”
I nod.
“Can you speak?”
I open my mouth. Close it. Shake my head. The mechanism is jammed.
His jaw tightens. A muscle jumps. “Injured throat?”
I touch my throat, shake my head again.
“Shock.” Not a question. “Follow me. Stay close. Nod if you understand.”
I nod.
He moves toward the roof’s edge. My body locks, feet rooting to gravel like I’ve been bolted down.
“Fire escape. Only way down.”
I shake my head violently, backing away.
He turns, impatience flickering across his features. “You climbed up—”
I point at the bodies. Then at myself. Make a throat-cutting gesture. Then point at the fire escape and shake my head harder, whole body trembling.
“Heights.” Understanding crosses his features, softening them fractionally. “But you climbed anyway. To survive.”
I nod, wrapping my arms around myself. My ribs protest—sharp pain lancing through my chest with each breath.
“Can you do it again?”
No. God, no.
Footsteps in the stairwell. Voices. More coming.
I force myself to nod.
He swings onto the fire escape—no hesitation, no fear, moving like the rusted metal is solid ground.
I snatch both my phone and the USB from one of the dead men and follow on legs made of jelly, hands welding to the railings.
The metal groans, shakes, threatens to tear free from the brick.
The rust is rough under my palms, flaking away, leaving orange residue on bloodied skin.
“Eyes on me.” An order, not a suggestion. “Don’t look down.”
I lock onto his face. Strong jaw, dark eyes that don’t waver. An anchor in the spinning world.
“One level. Then the next.”
We descend into a nightmare. Each step is calculated terror. My hands won’t release the railings. He has to pry them loose at each platform, his fingers warm against my frozen ones. Patient. Methodical. Like he has all the time in the world, even though we’re both going to die.
“Two more floors.”
Glass explodes above us. Gunfire erupts, suppressors spitting their mechanical coughs.
Without warning, he grabs me, throws me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. His shoulder drives into my stomach, reigniting the pain from earlier. One arm locks around my legs, holding me secure as he descends fast—taking steps three at a time.
There is no romance in it. Just efficiency. Mass and velocity and the quickest way to clear the kill zone.
The world inverts. Blood rushes to my head. His body is solid beneath me, muscles shifting with each movement. I smell gunpowder and sweat, leather and something clean like cedar. My hands clutch at his back, feeling a tactical vest, weapons, and controlled power.
We hit the alley hard. He sets me on my feet but keeps one arm around my waist when my knees buckle. His grip is firm, supporting without hurting my bruised ribs.
A motorcycle waits—black, anonymous.
“Get on.”
I stare at it, then at him.
“Now.” The word is an order, clipped and absolute.
I climb on behind him. My arms wrap around his waist on instinct. He’s solid, real, radiating heat through his jacket. I can feel his abs through the leather—hard planes of muscle, body honed for violence.
“Hold tight.”
The engine roars. We launch forward. Alley walls blur past. My ribs protest with each bump, each jarring impact. Wind tears at my torn clothes, stinging every cut. But his body shields most of it—a solid wall between me and everything trying to kill me.
We hit the street. He leans into a turn. I lean with him—instinct, survival, trust I didn’t choose. My arms tighten around his waist, feeling each breath he takes, each shift of muscle as he controls the machine.
Sirens wail somewhere in the distance. He weaves through traffic, taking side streets, alleys, routes that make no sense. Anti-surveillance driving on a motorcycle. The city blurs—lights and shadows and speed compressing into one long streak of survival.
My hands start to slip. Blood and sweat making grip impossible. Vision swimming from pain and possible concussion.
He covers one of my hands with his, pressing it firm against his stomach. “Stay with me.”
Not a request. Command.
I hold tighter. Vision swimming. But I don’t let go.
Can’t let go.
He’s the only solid thing in a world that’s become chaos and death and equations that don’t balance.