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My pulse turns into a blade.

I slam him back against the wall hard enough to rattle the loose metal door beside us.

Carlos steps closer, voice low. “If they brought in a woman and a kid, you heard about it.”

The man shakes his head too fast. “I don’t handle intake.”

Intake.

Like they’re supplies. Like they’re crates. Like Clair and Poppy are something to be sorted, used, consumed.

My vision goes red at the edges.

I pin his hand again.

Second finger.

He starts babbling before I break it.

“North corridor,” he gasps. “They put new ones in the north corridor. By the old department store. Please. Please, I only run pickups.”

Jacob grabs his hair, yanking his head back until the man bares bloody teeth. “Are they alive?”

A pause.

Too long.

Too fucking long.

I grab his second finger and snap it anyway.

He cries out again, folding over his ruined hand. Spit and blood drip from his mouth onto the broken asphalt. “Yes,” he chokes. “Yes. They were alive when I left. Woman and a kid. I swear.”

When I left.

Not now. Not guaranteed.

My hands start shaking. I hate that. I hate that he can see it. I hate that the world has given me someone to hurt and it still doesn’t fix the thing breaking inside me.

A groan scrapes from the street behind us. Then another.

The scream drew attention.

Lyla turns from the mouth of the alley, face hard. She scans the group, calculation already moving behind her eyes.

Joanie steps closer to the man, knife in hand, eyes bright in a way that makes even me pause. “Can I break one as part of my training?”

Trish points at her. “No.”

Joanie groans. “You never let me grow as a person.”

“This is not personal development,” Trish snaps.

Another moan rises from the street, closer this time. A shadow drags across the far end of the alley, crooked and slow. We have minutes before the dead turn curiosity into a crowd.

Lyla’s jaw tightens. “We need an entrance they don’t watch.”

Carlos looks at the man. “And we need it now.”