Lock is breathing hard next to me, the kind of ragged gasping you hear from someone who's never been shot at and is realizing what it means.
I know the feeling.
My body is running, but my mind is stuck in a loop, cycling back to the same handful of images like a film strip caught in a projector.
Kinsey's smile. Her hand on my chest. Camera positions. Friday rotation. The blind spot on the southeast fence. The number of prospects who stay behind.
Every answer I gave her.
Every secret I handed over because she was warm and I was lonely.
Nobody warns you when you're freshly eighteen and a few months into a new city that the girl who makes you feel seen might be the one dismantling everything around you.
We emerge from the north tunnel into cold air and moonlight.
The compound is below us, half-obscured by trees, and I can see smoke rising from the east side.
Bloodhound pulls out a burner phone—signal's spotty but functional away from the jammer's range.
He dials and waits.
"Ruger." One word. The relief in it lasts half a second before his voice goes hard again. "Compound's hit. Marco's crew, at least ten. Women are in the tunnels heading for Cabin Two. We're out through the north. Get here."
He listens, nods twice, and ends the call.
"Ounce is twenty minutes out with Ruger and the full patches." Bloodhound's eyes find mine. Something in them I can't read. "Sarah radioed from the south tunnel exit. She's hit."
The ground tilts under my feet.
"How bad?" My voice doesn't sound like mine.
"Kinsey got her to the cabin. She's conscious." A pause. "They were followed through the tunnels. Marco's men knew exactly where to go."
Of course they did.
Striker used to be Prez.
He would know, and Striker told Marco.
A straight line from my mouth to Sarah's blood, with three stops in between.
Sarah. Who brings me a plate every Sunday without being asked.
Whose husband Porter shook my hand last week and told me I’d make a good patch one day.
She's bleeding on a mountain because the boy Porter believed in couldn't tell the difference between a woman who loved him and a woman who was strip-mining him for information.
Beats sits down on a rock, head between his knees.
Lock is staring at the smoke below with dead eyes.
Shots is reloading the shotgun with hands shaking so bad he drops two shells.
I lean against a tree and press my forehead to the bark, close my eyes, and open them. The smoke is still there.
Everything starts here.
Not at Vulture's recommendation.