Two yards behind her, another woman moves with the same urgency, not chasing, not lagging, just close enough to matter. From the corner of my vision, a man near a charging station straightens a fraction too quickly, posture shifting from casual to ready in a way civilians never manage.
The pattern locks into place.
I don’t pause to analyze it. I don’t hesitate. My hand is already sliding back toward the gun holstered behind me, the motion small and controlled, invisible to anyone who doesn’t know what violence looks like before it happens. I catch the charging-station guy’s eye and know instantly that he’s lethal, trained, waiting for the moment to move.
Unfortunate for him that I’m faster.
I keep the gun tight to my body, angled so it disappears into the geometry of my frame, the suppressor turning what comes next into something almost polite. I fire once, clean and precise, the round punching straight through his heart.
There’s no spectacle. No spray. No sound worth mentioning. He simply folds, collapsing to the floor like a man whose body forgot what it was supposed to do next.
“Oh my God,” a woman nearby cries, rushing toward him. “Sir? Are you okay?”
He isn’t, and he never will be, but I’m already moving past them, tracking the direction Saint went as she slips deeper into the terminal.
My jaw tightens as I follow.
Was she leaving me?
Or did she see this coming and move first to draw the heat away?
I don’t have time to decide which answer I like better.
Movement flares behind me, and I pivot just enough to see another man clock the body on the floor, his gaze snapping from the dead assassin to the space I occupied a second ago. Partner. Confirmed. He hesitates for half a breath, trying to find me in the noise.
That half breath costs him everything.
I walk backward with the flow of traffic, gun already pointed, my pace steady enough to look accidental. The second shot lands just as clean as the first, dropping him without ceremony before anyone can register what’s happened.
Two bodies. No panic yet. Just confusion.
I turn forward again and pick up my pace, easing into alight jog as I follow Saint’s path through the terminal, weaving around screaming civilians and overturned luggage.
Whatever she saw, whatever she’s running toward, I’m not letting her handle it alone.
Not now.
I almost miss it.
Saint redirects fast, slipping sideways into one of those privacy pods bolted along the wall, the kind meant for breastfeeding or pumping or whatever else airports pretend counts as dignity. The woman following her doesn’t hesitate. She goes in after her like she thinks this ends one way and one way only.
Well. Nice knowing you. Whoever you were.
It takes less than ten seconds before Saint is walking back out, pace unchanged, expression bored enough to be insulting. I don’t need to see inside the pod to know how that went. Anyone arrogant enough to think they could take Saint James alone deserved the outcome.
Behind me, the atmosphere finally starts to crack.
The two men I dropped are bleeding now. At first, someone probably thought they’d fainted. Heart attack, maybe. People like to assume the mundane before the horrifying. That illusion doesn’t survive long once blood starts seeping through shirts and pooling on polished terminal floors.
A woman screams. Then another. Voices rise in sharp, overlapping bursts of confusion and fear. People behind me surge forward, trying to escape whatever they think is coming. People in front stretch and crane their necks, desperate to see it. Terminal employees’ jogtoward the noise, one already barking into a walkie like she’s trying to outrun the inevitable.
By the time I reach the central hub of the terminal, the illusion of normalcy is dead.
This is the intersection, the wide-open food court where restaurants form a rough circle and nowhere feels safe. And that’s when the Guild shows itself.
They arrive like they always do, without panic, without urgency. Escalators deliver them from below, sunglasses still on, expressions calm, eyes already hunting. Elevator doors slide open and release a few more, spreading outward instead of clustering. Some move in pairs, heads close, murmuring quick updates. Others peel off alone, loners by choice or reputation, scanning angles and exits like they’re deciding where the bodies will fall.
They’re surrounding us.
