“I can tell you everything, but—“ He stops, eyes locked over my shoulder, out the big glass door behind me. “Nika. Don’t. Move.”
A chill runs down my spine. The music next door thumps louder. Some kind of electronic dance mix. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s a blinking red light out there…” He trails off, putting down the wine glass. "Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.”
“I have to breathe,” I hiss, panicking. “Gabe. What the hell is going on?”
He moves toward me painfully slow like he’s trying not to spook a frightened animal. “I think… there’s a drone… right outside…”
“A drone? What the hell?!” I turn to look.
“Fuck!”
Gabe storms forward. I spot the outline of the machine. The blinking red eye stares at my face. The drone is way bigger than I expected, almost the size of a small car. It’s a quadcopter, but absolutely enormous, and I can make out the whirr of its blades. The noise had blended in with my neighbors’ music, but now I can hear it like screams right in my face.
He grabs me by the arm and pulls hard. I gasp in shock and pain as I stumble after him, back through my living room. Gabe’s running and I’m forced to keep up, staggering, tripping, dropping my wine glass. It shatters on the floor, spilling everywhere, and he doesn’t slow down.
“Run, Nika, keep go?—“
His words are drowned by heat, light, and wild motion.
CHAPTER 2
NIKA
Strong arms wrap around my body as we’re flung down the hall. Something smashes and suddenly we’re tumbling out my front door. Wood splinters around us. Flames lick the air behind me, tendrils of heat and death reaching like greedy fingers. I try to scream but there’s no air in my lungs. Black smoke pours from my apartment in thick waves. We hit the ground hard and roll until we smash into the opposite wall. I’m pinned underneath Gabe, my body shoved against the baseboards. The cheap, scratchy rug is jammed against my mouth.
“Are you okay?” Gabe snarls, pulling himself back. He gets to his feet unsteadily. It’s a minor miracle, but he’s still got the dress. The hem is blackened though, which is a shame. It looks like a nice dress.
“I think so.” I sit up, dizzy and confused. A few of my neighbors are coming out of their doors. Gabe kneels and pulls me to my feet.
“We have to go.”
“Wait, hold on—“ I gape at my apartment. “It’s on fire. We need to call the fire department.”
“Someone else will handle it.”
“Gabe wait?—“
“You were nearly incinerated in a drone strike. You really want to stand here and discuss it?”
His grin is gone. His expression is hard, and I want to trust him. Every inch of me is desperate for him to tell me what to do. I’ve always been that way. It’s easier to go along.
I fall into old habits and nod. “Okay, let’s go.”
He helps me up and shakes off a few concerned bystanders. They gape in stunned silence as I limp past them. My ankle hurts and my head’s throbbing but I’m fine otherwise. Gabe’s doing much worse: parts of his suit are singed and torn, and there are a few cuts down his arms and on his face. He took the brunt of the attack and saved my life, nearly at the cost of his own.
He said this might happen… he warned me from the start… and I still didn’t listen.
The world’s spinning as we descend to the bottom floor. He pauses in the lobby, listening carefully near the doors, before sprinting out into the night. He drags me along behind him and I can barely keep up. I wait for the drone to appear again, its black rotors spinning, another missile streaking through the darkness, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, we reach a BMW parked near the entrance. He gets me inside, puts the dress in my lap, and jumps behind the wheel.
We peel out as sirens blare in the distance, getting closer.
I watch out the back window. Smoke twists into the sky. More neighbors appear in the parking lot. I don’t look forward again until my apartment building is out of view.
“Someone tried to kill me,” I say in a daze before looking down. “And there’s a wedding dress in my lap.”
“Weird day for everyone,” Gabe murmurs, concentrating on the road. He steers away from Koreatown, heading to West Hollywood.
