They hesitate.
And that’s when the door behind me bursts open and Knight barrels out.
He takes one look at the scene—me, bat, two groaning guards—and his expression is a mix of horror, fury, anddeep, exhausted resignation.
“Birdie,” he says darkly. “What did I tell you?”
“Technically,” I say, breathless, “I stayed near the car.”
He grabs my wrist. “Run now. Semantics later.”
We jump off the dock, hit the gravel hard, and sprint toward the alley as shouts rise behind us.
Bullets ping off metal somewhere to our left.
We duck.
“The car,” I gasp. “Two blocks.”
“New plan,” Arrow says in our ears, voice sharp. “Donotgo back to Riverside. They’re sweeping the street. You’ve got a fast-moving van heading your way—no plates, clouded windows. It’s not cops. It’s someone else.”
“Who?” Knight snaps.
“Whoever got that feed burst,” Ozzy says grimly. “They’re fast. And they’re organized. This is bigger than Diego Vale. You’ve tripped something bigger.”
We slam into shadow, ducking behind a dumpster.
I’m panting, lungs burning.
Knight presses his back to the cold metal, one arm still around my wrist. His breath clouds the air between us.
“Okay,” he says, voice low. Controlled. Terrifyingly calm. “Give it to me straight.”
Arrow doesn’t hesitate. “That camera system? It’s not just for blackmail. It’s tied into a darknet bounty network. Someone’s scraping faces from high-risk criminal hubs and adding them to a database. That packet with your image went straight to a node with a standing buy order.”
I squint. “In English?”
Ozzy answers. “Your face just landed in a folder labeled ‘Persons of Interest – Interference.’ There’s a bounty tag on it now.”
“Bounty? Like someone just put a hit on us?” Knight’s jaw flexes. “Amount?”
“High enough to make you popular,” Ozzy says. “And they’ve got Lark now too. You hit the floodlight, sweetheart. Congrats—you’re both trending.”
“On theworst kindof social media,” Arrow adds.
Knight closes his eyes for a beat.
Then opens them.
They’re dark.
Resolved.
“Can they trace us back to Riverside?” he asks.
“Working on severing the links,” Arrow says. “But assume yes. You can’t come back here tonight. Or home. You’ve got about ten minutes before local goons and out-of-town opportunists start sniffing around.”
I swallow.
