I don't move.I don't breathe.Just pray.
He holds it there.Doesn't move.Just holds the light steady on that one spot, on that one line of invisible text that I spent fifteen minutes getting perfect.
Patel's finger comes up.He traces the edge where the holographic overlay meets the paper, following the line slowly, methodically, looking for the bubble I removed, looking for any separation, any air, any sign that hands have been here, that this pad has been born from something other than a factory floor.
His glasses slide down his nose.
He adjusts them.Leans closer.
Slowly his expression shifts—professional acknowledgment, like he's confirming a diagnosis he already suspected.
He sets the pad down, removes his glasses, looks at Marquez.
"It is very good," he says, and his accent wraps around each word, making them deliberate, formal, real."Very good.I would not question this.If it came across my desk in my own pharmacy, I would not think twice."
He pauses, and in that pause is everything—the weight of what he's just confirmed, the understanding that this pad will work, that it will kill people, that he's just helped make that possible.
"I would never question it," he repeats quietly, and there's something broken in his voice.
Marquez starts to laugh, like this is a comedy.He lowers the gun, and Jagger's shoulders collapse forward just slightly, like he's been holding his breath for nearly two hours.
But he's not laughing.
He's not even close.
Jagger
The city closes in as we leave the industrial stretch behind—buildings rising up, streets narrowing, traffic thickening.We head back toward Marigny, back to the apartment that's been my cover for three years, and I'm acutely aware of Adena in the seat beside me.
"Two hours," Paco continues from the front seat, shaking his head like he can't quite believe it."I thought she'd need at least three, maybe four."He laughs."Dr.Patel looked like he was gonna cry when he saw it.'Very good, very good.'"He mimics the accent badly, but there's nothing funny about what he's describing."Man was relieved he didn't have to tell the boss it was garbage."
I keep my voice flat even though my pulse is still thundering."Yeah."
She's through.One more step deeper into Marquez's operation, one step closer to what we need.The thought should feel like progress.Instead, it feels like standing on the edge of something that's about to collapse.
Paco finally turns back around and fiddles with the radio.He lands on some Zydeco station, and drums and accordion fill the cab, and the normalcy of it makes my skin crawl.
The SUV slows, turning onto my street.The enforcer pulls up to the curb outside my building, engine idling.
"Be seeing you," Paco says, twisting around one last time.His smile doesn't reach his eyes.
We climb out into the thick heat.I watch the SUV pull away slowly—too slowly—and I can't look away until it turns the corner and disappears.My shoulders don't drop.The tension doesn't ease.
Adena's bike was delivered while we were in the warehouse.When she looks back at me, there's something wild in her expression that tells me she felt every second the gun was held to my head.
She grabs her helmet from where it's hooked on the handlebars."I need to move," she says quietly."Now."
I get it.The adrenaline is still coursing through both of us, raw and vicious.The fear we couldn't afford is clawing its way to the surface, demanding release.It has to burn off or it'll eat us alive from the inside out.
"I'll grab my gear."
I take the stairs two at a time, grab my leather jacket from the hook, and my helmet from the closet.
When I come back down, Adena's already on her bike, engine growling, visor down.She's locked in.Ready.There's something in the set of her shoulders that tells me she's not just trying to burn off adrenaline—she's trying to outrun what just happened in the warehouse.
I swing onto mine and fire it up.The rumble vibrates through my chest, familiar and grounding, the one thing about my life that's still honest.
She doesn't ask where we're going, just opens the throttle and pulls out into traffic, and I follow close enough that if she falls, I go down with her.
