He fires.
The impact spins me as the bullet hits my left shoulder, just above my collarbone. I hit the wall hard, weapon clattering from my hand.
“Should have stayed with your friends. Now you’ll die alone, in the dark.”
He raises his gun again, aiming center mass this time.
This is it. This is how I die.
Mara’s face flashes through my mind—her smile, her laugh. The way she said my name.
I’m sorry, Princess. I tried.
Edmund’s finger tightens on the trigger?—
A door slams somewhere behind him.
Edmund hesitates for just a second, weighing his options: finish me or escape while he can.
He chooses escape.
“Tell your friends,” he says, backing toward another exit, “the Syndicate doesn’t forget. We’ll be seeing you again.”
Then he’s gone.
I slide down the wall, hand pressed to my shoulder, blood seeping between my fingers. Not arterial—I’d be dead already—but bad. Definitely bad.
“Jasper,” I manage over the comm, “I’m hit. Left shoulder. Edmund got away. Need extraction.”
“Where are you?”
The tunnel spins. “Maintenance tunnels. Old section. I—I don’t know. Lost.”
“Stay on comms. We’re tracking your signal. Hold on.”
Hold on. Right. Because I have so many other options while bleeding out, alone, in the dark.
I press harder on the wound. The pain keeps me conscious, focused.
One out of three. Only James dead. Edmund and Marcus both escaped.
We failed.
We came here to cut the head off the Syndicate and we barely nicked it. One leader dead, two alive, and now, fully warned. They’ll regroup—come at us harder with more resources, more rage, more reason to see us dead.
And I’m bleeding in a tunnel, unable to even stand.
There’s footsteps down the tunnel. I try to reach for my weapon but it’s too far away, and moving sends fresh waves of agony through my shoulder.
If it’s security, I’m caught. If it’s Syndicate, I’m dead.
The footsteps round the corner?—
It’s Jasper and Dredyn, both covered in blood, weapons ready, eyes scanning for threats.
“Talon!” Jasper’s at my side immediately, hands replacing mine on the wound. Assessing me. “Through and through. Missed the major vessels. You’ll live.”
“Fantastic,” I breathe.
