The shot cracked through the air.

Not the hitman's. Not Cassian's. Not mine.

A different gun. A different angle. A different force ripping the night apart.

Helman's gun.

For one heartbeat, everything froze—the stench of metal and rain, Cassian half-collapsed against me, and the echo of the shot slicing through the laundromat like lightning through bone.

Then the man who should have fired jerked, violent and sudden, and dropped like gravity had punched him.

Before the corpse finished hitting the ground, Helman fired again. Sharp. Controlled. Precise.

The second attacker crumpled, blood blooming across the broken linoleum like an opening flower. The third didn't hesitate; he dove for the back door, leaving a streak of blood behind him. Helman fired one last time, clipping the man's shoulder as he vanished into the storm outside.

Silence crashed into the room, silent except for the frantic thud of my heartbeat.

"Go!" Helman roared, voice splintering through the chaos. "Get him out of here!"

I didn't move.

I couldn't.

My eyes dragged to the floor, to the body sprawled beside the shattered dryer, to the familiar boots, to the smear of blood.

Nova.

Her dark hair, usually spiked and defiant, lay matted in blood. Her skin was too pale. Too still.

Nova, who had come for us. Nova, who had stitched Cassian. Nova, who never hesitated to run toward danger while the rest of the world ran from it.

On the floor.

Not moving.

My lungs forgot how to pull air.

"Nova!" I choked, stumbling toward her.

Helman blocked me with a bleeding arm, shoving me back with more force than I expected from someone wounded.

"She's gone."

Two words. Two bullets to the heart.

My body froze. My breath went somewhere I couldn't reach.

Gone? Nova? My Nova?

What was she even doing here? How did she follow us? Why—

Helman fired again, jolting me back to reality as another shadow darted past the door. The shot missed, just barely, but the message was clear: they were still coming.

He gripped my shoulder with blood-slick fingers and shook once, hard.

"Get out. Now," he said again. His eyes... God. His eyes.

There was something there I had never seen before. Not just fury. Not just desperation.

Something like grief. Or remorse. Or a truth I wasn't ready for. Something that looked suspiciously like guilt mixed with determination, as if he'd been waiting his whole miserable life for a chance at redemption and this was it.

I didn't know.

"Thank you," I whispered, because nothing else fit the moment.

He nodded once, wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand, and braced himself like a man preparing to face death and spit in its face.

I turned to Cassian.

He sagged against the broken folding table like a dying king. His skin was ashen, his breath shallow. His shirt soaked through with blood.

I scrambled to him, wedging myself under his arm, hauling upward until my knees nearly buckled.

I headed toward the back exit, my legs straining beneath his weight, every step a silent prayer that this wasn't the last place he'd ever breathe.

Behind us, Helman held the line.

Helman, the man who'd once betrayed Cassian. The man Cassian swore never to trust again.

Now fighting for us.

Protecting us.

Dying for us, maybe.

I didn't look back.

I couldn't look back.

We pushed through the back door into a narrow alley swallowed in wet darkness. Sirens wailed in the distance, loud, close, too close.

Cassian slumped against the wall, breath hitching, shallow and broken.

"Stay with me," I whispered, fingers shaking as I held him upright. "Cassian, stay with me."

His eyes flickered open, storm-gray and struggling.

"You…" he breathed, voice barely human. "You don't get to save me and then lose me. Not… not how this works."

My throat closed around a sob I refused to let out. But I was grateful he was still fighting.

His lips twitched, like he wanted to smirk but couldn't find the strength.

His hand slipped into mine, weak, trembling, alive. A grip that said I'm still here. A grip that begged don't let go.

Then his eyes found mine through the rain, those storm-gray irises clearing with terrifying clarity.

"Nora…" he whispered.

Just my name.

But the way he said it, like it held something precious, something impossible, it sent something sharp and dangerous through my chest.

The sirens shrieked louder.

Red and blue lights flickered against the alley walls, painting everything in shattering contradictions: violence and safety, hope and doom, life and death.

I froze.

Cassian didn't.

His grip tightened.

His voice tore out, soft but unbreakable: "Run."

My heart detonated.

Because he was right.

We weren't just running from shadows anymore.

We weren't running from faceless men with guns, or black SUVs, or the echo of footsteps in alleys.

We were running from the law. From the empire that wanted him buried. From his brother, the man who'd stolen everything and now wanted to finish the job.

And somewhere in this storm, beneath the blood and fear and rain, one truth burned itself into my bones.

I would die before I let them take him.

The alley twisted in tight switchbacks behind the old depot. I dragged Cassian through puddles that swallowed my ankles and past dumpsters overflowing with rotting trash. His weight pulled me sideways; I kept correcting, kept dragging, kept praying.

"We need to hide," I whispered.

We had seconds. Maybe less.

Flooded pavement splashed beneath our feet as I half-carried, half-dragged him into the maze of dumpsters.

His breath rasped, uneven. I shoved him under the metal overhang behind a stack of crates, bracing my body over his.

"Don't… die," he muttered.

"Bossy," I snapped, though my voice cracked.

I shoved him into the narrow shelter formed by two overflowing trash bins, ignoring the stench, ignoring everything except the weight of him in my arms and the blood soaking through my shirt.

"Cassian." I cupped his face with trembling hands. "Stay with me. Do you hear me?"

"Trying," he whispered. "Not… not great at it."

"Then get better."

The faintest ghost of a smile touched his lips.

Voices approached from the street. Flashlights cut through the fog, slicing light across the alley.

"Here?"

"Check the next block."

"They couldn't have gone far."

Cassian's hand tightened on my arm, warm despite everything. His pulse fluttered against my palm where I still held his face.

"Nora… we can't stay."

No kidding.

When the lights shifted away, I hauled him back up and sprint-limped through the maze of alleys until my lungs screamed.

We emerged two blocks from my apartment building. Every window was dark. Every shadow felt like a threat.

Staying was not an option. But I'd run out of options three bullets ago.

"Where?" I panted, my body sagging against his weight.

He looked up, ghostly pale in the dim light. "Dalton," he said.

"Where's that?"

"Forty blocks from here." His breath hitched. "We need a car."

A siren screamed past the intersection ahead. I pressed us both flat against the brick wall, heart hammering so hard I thought it might crack a rib.

The lights swept past.

Gone.

I heaved a small sigh and looked into the empty street.

"Then let's get one."

I half-dragged him three blocks south to a residential street lined with parked cars. Picked the oldest sedan I could find, one that wouldn't have a fancy alarm system.

I knelt beside the driver's door, pulling my soaked bobby pin from my hair.

"Nora—" Cassian rasped from where he leaned against the car.

I popped the lock in five seconds.

He stared. "Never mind."

I pulled the door open and helped him around to the passenger seat. He grimaced but didn't argue, collapsing into the worn fabric with a pained exhale.

I slid into the driver's seat and pulled the panel beneath the steering column.

"Should I ask how you know how to do that?" Cassian's voice was weak but carried a thread of dark amusement.

"No."

"Fair enough."

I stripped the right wires, twisted them together, and the engine coughed to life.

For a moment, I just sat there, hands gripping the steering wheel, reality crashing over me in waves.

Nova was dead.

We'd stolen a car.

Cassian was bleeding out in the passenger seat.

And somewhere in this godforsaken city, his brother's men were hunting us.

"Nora." Cassian's hand found my knee, warm and grounding. "We have to move."

I sucked in a breath and nodded.

Then I hit the gas.