Instinct hits before thought.
I spin, gun already drawn from the back of my waistband.
The assassin charging me doesn’t even get a full second of recognition before I put two bullets in his chest and one between his eyes. He collapses mid-stride, momentum skidding his body into the dirt like a sack of grain. Judging by the direction he came from, he approached along the tracks.
I move fast. Drag him by the collar, roll his body to the edge of the shallow grave I’m kneeling in, and position him in a crude shield—a barrier of dead weight between me and the open approach.
Then I listen.
Nothing but wind, faint tremors from the tracks, and the pounding of my own pulse.
But it won’t stay quiet.
I know that.
A lone assassin means more are coming.
My jaw clenches and I take the blade from the dirt with a little more force than necessary. “How the hell did someone find me this fast?” It joins my small arsenal, sliding into the sheath at me ankle.
Could’ve been someone on the train.
Someone who jumped off after I did.
Or someone who didn’t need to jump—someone who never boarded.
Doesn’t matter. Not now.
They know where I am.
Which means I have seconds—maybe a minute—before the next one arrives.
I crouch again beside the corpse, fingers already searching for anything I missed.
“I swear,” I mutter to him, “if you don’t have something useful on you, I’m going to kill you again.”
I grunt as I grab the corpse by the collar and haul him toward the opposite ledge, dragging his dead weight out of the grave. He thuds against the dirt beside today’s freshly made friend, and I waste no time dropping to my knees.
I need to check the soil.
If he dropped anything—key card, burner, chip—this is my only shot to find it.
My hands sweep through the loose earth, digging, feeling textures: leaves, roots, a few stones, damp grit. My heart hammers so loud it’s almost all I hear.
I start counting in my head.
Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one…
If I hit sixty, I leave. No matter how unfinished this is.
The forest behind me shifts—no,stops.
Birds go silent.
Leaves freeze mid-sway.
Even the breeze forgets how to move as every instinct in my body goes rigid.
I freeze too. Hands buried in dirt.
