Chapter 14 #2
Let’s just hope this ends with her having one too many insane action dreams, not with her mother coming back with security and a phone already dialed.
Nathaniel’s eyes flick to me.
I nod once, the smallest nod I’ve ever given in my life.
Stay on mission.
Above us, Cassian keeps going.
“I can help you with this,” he says. “It’s five minutes, man.”
“I don’t need… I said…”
Cassian doesn’t push in an aggressive way. He pushes like a guy who genuinely doesn’t want another guy to ruin his day.
“I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” Cassian says. “Just…”
“Can’t you get a fucking hint?” the driver snaps. “Fuck off, dude.”
My blood goes cold.
Every alarm bell in my head starts screaming.
Now what? Now what? Now what?
Cassian goes quiet for half a second.
Then he lets it go.
“Alright,” he says. “Okay. Sorry. Have a good one.”
And he steps back.
I can’t see his face from here, only his boots.
But I can feel the switch, the friendly act dropping away as Cassian comes back online underneath it.
He turns from the window. As he walks, he lifts a hand and scratches the back of his neck.
It looks meaningless, except for the way his fingers flick twice.
Stay.
Nathaniel catches it immediately. He goes even stiller, like he’s turned to stone.
So do I.
Cassian keeps walking, putting distance between himself and the van. He doesn’t look back. He just… leaves.
For a second I’m terrified the driver will gun it and peel out anyway.
But then the van’s console dings again, and the driver’s door cracks open. The driver mutters to himself as he steps out.
I see his shoes first, then his legs. He slams the door harder than necessary.
Nathaniel leans toward me, barely moving his lips. “Now.”
We wait two more seconds, until he’s fully away from the driver’s side. Until his body blocks the van from the angle where any rear camera might catch movement in a reflection, a mirror, whatever paranoid setup he’s running.
Then Nathaniel moves first, controlled and smooth, sliding along the line of cars.
I follow.
We round the rear of the gray sedan, using it as cover, then cut forward along the opposite side of the van, always keeping car bodies between us and any lens that might still be watching.
The driver is crouching now, bent toward the tire, one hand braced on his knee, the other hovering near the rubber.
He says to absolutely no one, “Piece of shit…”
Nathaniel and I stop behind him.
Just like that.
We’re close enough that I can see the back of his neck. The small fold of skin at his collar. The cheap fabric of his jacket. And I know, I simply know, it’s about to be over. We won. The syringe in Nathaniel’s hand is ready, and he’s not the type of man to hesitate in a crucial moment and—
Police sirens sound out behind me.
Not close enough to be here, not yet, but close enough to pull every nerve in my body tight as wire. Same for the murderer in front of us. His head snaps up.
His eyes lock on the syringe in Nathaniel’s hand, already flying toward him.
The man moves like a snapped rubber band.
He pivots on the ball of his foot and slams his shoulder into Nathaniel’s chest before the needle can find skin. Nathaniel stumbles back half a step, boots scraping grit. His arm stays extended, still controlled, but the man’s palm is already wrapped around his wrist.
What the…?
I see it in sick, stupid detail. The tendons in the man’s hand stand out, white against his skin, his fingers clamping down like he’s done this before.
The syringe wobbles in Nathaniel’s grip.
They collide hard enough to make my stomach lurch.
Cassian, somewhere to the left, farther down the row, turns at the same time I do. I catch him through the gap between cars, his head snapping toward us, his whole posture shifting in a single blink from leaving to fighting.
He starts running.
“Skye!” he yells.
Nathaniel tries to wrench free. He twists his wrist, keeps his elbow tight, tries to keep the syringe from being ripped away.
The man growls something I can’t make out.
Then he drives the heel of his hand into Nathaniel’s face, a brutal strike that whips Nathaniel’s head to the side. The man’s grip slides down and closes around the syringe barrel.
It’s happening too fast. Way too fast.
For one heartbeat, they both have it, pulling back and forth like the world has narrowed to that single point of struggle.
I feel myself teeter on the edge of panic, the familiar freeze trying to lock my limbs in place, and I have to wrench myself out of it.
Because I will be damned if something happens to Nathaniel right in front of me.
Cassian’s voice from earlier slices through the static in my head.
If it comes down to it, you shoot. Don’t hesitate.
My body moves before my courage can catch up.
My hand slips under my jacket, finds the gun, and drags it free.
I raise it with both hands, arms tight, breath shaking, trying to make my vision steady.
Nathaniel and the man grapple again. It’s really ugly. Nathaniel tries to kick his knee out, tries to wedge his forearm under the man’s throat, tries anything to break the hold. But the man answers with a brutal elbow driven into Nathaniel’s ribs and Nathaniel’s grip loosens.
Just a fraction.
And that fraction is everything.
The man yanks the syringe free. My finger finds the safety before I even realize I’m doing it, and I aim, when, in one fast, horrifying motion, the man plunges the syringe into Nathaniel’s side.
For half a second, Nathaniel’s body doesn’t understand what happened. Then it does. His breath catches like it’s been stolen; his pupils blow wide; his knees give out as if someone cut the strings holding him up.
“No,” I whisper, the word scraping out of my throat. He tries to take a step and doesn’t make it. He hits the asphalt with a blunt, sickening thud that reverberates straight through my bones.
Fuck. Oh, fuck.
Everything inside me goes hollow, then floods with fire. I don’t think. I just pull the trigger.
The man ducks. He ducks like he knows exactly what my body is about to do, and when. His shoulders drop, his head snapping down and to the side, and the shot doesn’t take him.
It takes something behind him.
A groan cuts through the noise, a sound that makes my heart stutter because I know it.
Cassian. I blink once, stunned, and he’s suddenly there behind the man, close enough to touch him, one hand wrapped around a syringe, his whole body angled to drive it in.
My bullet goes straight into him. It knocks him back half a step like a cruel shove, and a harsh sound tears out of him. He drops to his knees.
No.
No, no, no.
My fingers go numb around the gun. I don’t even register it when it slips from my hand and clatters to the ground. For a heartbeat, the entire parking lot freezes. Then someone screams, and another voice joins it, and chaos erupts. Sirens wail closer.
What have I just done?
The man’s head whips toward Cassian first, then toward me. His eyes are bright in a way that doesn’t feel made for humans, more like for the wraiths, and he spots the gun on the ground. He moves for it.
My body reacts on pure instinct. I lunge.
His hand clamps around my wrist mid-reach.
It’s a fucking iron grip.
Pain flashes white-hot up my forearm as he twists, yanking me sideways.
My shoulder screams. My boots skid over grit and oil stains and salt, and I stumble into him instead of away.
My chest slams into his. He uses my momentum, turns me, and drives me hard into the van’s side panel.
The impact punches the breath out of me so violently my vision sparks.
“Fuck,” I choke, trying to drag air back into my lungs.
His forearm presses into my throat. His mouth moves. He’s saying something but all I hear is blood roaring in my ears and the distant panic exploding around us. A woman shrieks, high and frantic. Someone yells, “Call 112!”
I rip the switchblade from my hip.
The blade snaps open.
I slash on instinct.
He catches my wrist again and wrenches it outward until pain detonates up to my elbow. The knife slips from my grip, clattering under the van and vanishing into shadow.
“You little bitch,” he says.
And I swear, if I could… if I had anything in me that could match him, I would unleash hell right here, right now. He reminds me too much of Duvall. He drags up the same disgust, the same panic, like a match to gasoline.
I slam my head forward.
It’s stupid. It’s desperate. It’s all I have.
My forehead connects with his nose.
It doesn’t matter.
He smiles like I’ve just told him a joke. His elbow snaps up into my jaw. White explodes behind my eyes. My knees buckle. He grabs the back of my head and smashes it into the van panel.
Sound drops out. Cassian’s shout fades into the distance.
Then the dark takes me all at once.