The hunt is on.
The coordinates Ollie keeps repeating lead us to the forgotten Navigli canal, where the city’s charm turns to rot. We abandon the car a quarter mile back, the silence of the warehouse eerie around us. The only noise is the ragged sound of my own breathing and the sharp click of Ollie’s heels on the cracked asphalt.
She refused to change her shoes.
“There,” Ollie hisses, pointing with her chin.
A lone warehouse juts out over the black water, supported by slime-covered pilings. A makeshift dock extends from it, warped and sagging. And on the dock, figures move in the shadows.
Two men. And between them, a limp form is being dragged.
Violet.
Even from fifty yards away, I know the shape of her. Her feet scrape lifelessly across the splintered planks. Beside her, a second heap. Cassie. They dump her onto the dock like a sack.
My heart doesn’t hammer; it completely stops. It becomes a block of ice in my chest, heavier than anything they could tie to her.
We are too far away. The math is undeniable. We’ll never cover the open ground before they finish.
“Run, you stupid—” Ollie snarls, already breaking into a sprint, her gun coming up.
I run, but it’s a nightmare run where my legs pump through water, and the distance continues to stretch instead of shrink. Every detail is etched in hyper-clarity. The green glow of a single lantern, the slick sheen on the black water, the bulky shapes of the cinder blocks.
The older man, I’m guessing is Michel, stands watching with a phone to his ear. The second works with speed, looping a rope around Violet’s ankles. He tests the knot and grunts with satisfaction.
Ollie skids to a halt, braces her stance, and fires.
The shot is a clap of thunder in a silent field. It goes wide, sparking off an iron piling with aping.Butit has the intended effect. Both men jerk their heads toward us.
Michel’s eyes find us, but he’s anything but panicked. He’s calculating, saying something to the other man.
The second guy doesn’t hesitate; he simply bends, hooks his arms under Violet’s shoulders, and with a single, powerful heave… throws her over the edge of the dock.
Time doesn’t slow. It shatters.
I see her body, cinder blocks following, as the water swallows her whole.
The surface splashes for a moment, bubbles marking her grave, then everything goes perfectly smooth.
A sound tears from me, not a scream, but something that comes deeper.
Ollie is screaming, a stream of profanity and fury, firing again and again.
Bang. Bang.
“OUCH!”
Bang
Michel is already moving, ducking back into the warehouse shadows, but he’s holding his leg.
They are gone.
Violet is gone.
I take off at a full sprint as I reach the dock. I don’t think. My fingers tear at the laces of my boots and my jacket as I run. Ollie is keeping pace beside me, her face a mask of horror, grabbing my arm as her eyes dart from me to Cassie, who is lying unconscious in front of us.
She looks ahead as I don’t slow down, realizing what I’m about to do.
