Page 10

It's parked halfway down the street and angles right across the road to block it. Both men I glimpsed earlier stand in front of it with heavy black assault rifles in their hands and the moment I come into view, they open fire.

"Holy shit!"

Bullets explode into the front of my car, smashing headlights, scraping paint, and splintering the windshield into a thousand cracks that are impossible to see through. I wrench the wheel to the side and duck down behind the dashboard while countless more bullets penetrate the car. They tear apart the seats, sending chunks of leather and stuffing everywhere, smash through my phone and abruptly end the call, and tear up everything in their path.

The car lurches as the front wheel hits something, then I crash violently into something I can’t see. The impact sends me forward, and my head cracks against the dashboard, blinding me momentarily, and then the world goes black.

I wake what feels like seconds later to find myself lying on cold, rough tarmac. The night sky stretches out above me like black velvet draped between the towering apartment buildings standing tall like statues placed just to watch my demise.

Everything hurts.

Blinding, sharp pain sears through my skull, agony tears through my chest, and my left leg burns as if naked flame licks at my bare flesh.

I blink and suddenly, Sabina's tear-stained face is above me, twisted in panic.

"Cassian!" she gasps. Despite being right above me, it's almost as if she's on the other side of the street with how faint her voice is. She blinks and tears drop from her shining eyes down onto my cheeks. "Oh, my God, Cassian, I'm so sorry!"

She vanishes from my view and heavy pressure lands on my thigh.

Sabina… the crash… those fuckers!

My adrenaline spikes, and I manage to prop myself weakly up on one elbow. Sabina's down by my leg with both her blood-stained hands clutching my thigh while crimson pours like a fountain from a gunshot wound. The two men stand nearby with their heads bowed together and I glimpse my Suit card in their hands.

Shit.

My car's overturned to my right with the wheels still spinning, while the van remains parked in the middle of the road with the hazards flashing. Everything's moving in slow motion, and sitting up is enough for the splitting pain in my skull to triple in agony, so I sink back down with a weak groan.

I'm tired.

Coldness spreads from my thigh to my gut and each time I blink, it's harder to open my eyes.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" A voice reaches my ears, one I don't recognize, but from the gravelly tones, I guess it belongs to the older cunt. "He's with the Suit. Do you have any idea what this means?"

"Ain't that just a ghost story?" comes the other voice.

Flesh hits flesh, followed by a yelp and the gravelly voice once more. "Don't scoff at the Suit, you fucking idiot. These people will kill us, you hear me?"

"So let's kill him."

"You young 'uns are fucking insane. You can't kill someone from the Suit. That's like spitting in the Devil's porridge, alright?"

"So don't kill him. Look at him. The amount of blood he's lost already, he'll be dead in minutes."

"I'm sorry!" Sabina's face reappears over mine. "I-I can't stop the bleeding. I don't know what to do! I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry!"

"Call—” Trying to speak is painful, like dragging the words through the barbed wire that's invaded my throat. "Y-You gotta…. call… 5… 5…"

"Come on, bitch," snarls the older man. "We're getting out of here."

"No! You can't leave him like this! What kind of men are you?"

"Smart men," he snarls as he grabs her arm. "We ain't killing the Jack, that's for fucking sure."

On my next sluggish blink, Sabina's face vanishes and an older, weathered face appears above me. Rage ignites in my gut, but it has nowhere to go and the cold spreading through me very quickly smothers it.

"Leaving you to bleed out here, though?" He laughs, a raspy sound that's broken by Sabina's distant screams. He flips my card around between my fingers, then tosses it down onto my chest. "Well, that just absolves us of our responsibility, doesn't it?"

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