The apartment’s silent again, but it feels like my walls are vibrating from the echo of him.
My hands are shaking. My knees almost buckle. I bolt.
I don’t even grab shoes. I run.
I’m down the stairs and out the door before I register the sting of concrete against my bare feet. My compad is clutched in my hand, trembling fingers stabbing at the call log.
“Come on, come on, come on?—”
The tone beeps twice.
Then—
“Voltar!” I gasp, half-sobbing, half-screaming into the receiver as I sprint barefoot into the neon-lit night. “It’s Tugun. He was here.In the apartment.He said you paid him off. He said he’s not gonna kill me yet but—stars, I don’t even know what’s happening! I’m in the street—I’m running—where are you?!”
There’s silence.
Then his voice crackles through like thunder wrapped in velvet.
“Sable. Stop running.”
“Ican’t?—”
“I’m coming to you. Now. You’re not alone.”
I can’t make myself stop, though. I keep right on going. I’m barefoot, gasping, sprinting down the wet pavement like a lunatic.
Every broken bit of gravel digs into the soft meat of my feet. Rain from earlier slicks the sidewalk, and I almost go down twice—once near a vendor cart that smells like fried despair, and again when my compad slips in my grip and I lunge to catch it mid-run.
Voltar’s voice still echoes in my ear.
“Sable. Stop running.”
I don’t.
Can’t.
My pulse is a freight train. My lungs feel like they’re trying to claw their way out of my ribs. Every time I blink I see Tugun’s eyes—those shimmering, half-lidded predator eyes set in a face too pretty for how casually it talks about murder.
He was in myapartment.
Mybedroom, probably. Breathing my air. Moving things. Maybe sitting on the couch I binge dramas on when I’m too tired to think. The same couch Voltar swore he’d “rigged like a war fortress with concealed plasma netting.”
And somehow, Tugun still got in. Still got out.
Unscathed.
Mocking.
I don’t even realize I’m sobbing until I try to breathe and it comes out choked, my body hitching like it’s fighting itself. I lurch forward, one hand on a building wall to steady myself.Neon halos blur through tears. The street spins. A hovercar honks in the distance, angry and irrelevant.
Then—suddenly—I’m off the ground.
Lifted.
Crushed against heat and armor and the sound of a familiar growl.
“I’ve got you.”
