CHAPTER THREE 

“High Flyers”

 

 

CHEZTER

 

 

The forest outside the NU Kingdom slept under a lid of fog and frost.

The air was thin enough to taste the metal in it.

 

Chezter moved through the snow without sound — a black specter in his spandex armor, fur coat trailing behind him like the ghost of the tiger he’d skinned. Twin sais hung crossed at his chest, their edges whispering whenever he breathed.

 

Beside him, Tilly walked with a steady rhythm, the tip of her sword dragging a faint line through the snow. Her jean jacket was half-frozen, covering her brown Puerto Rican skin, curls slicked with frost, but her hazel eyes still burned warm. A fur coat swallowed her small 5’2 frame, a queen’s petite robe for a world without royalty.

 

The two were hunting deer, but the woods had gone too quiet — like even the animals were holding their breath.

 

Tilly: “So you and Josie are pretty close, huh?”

 

Chezter said nothing at first, just nodded once, eyes scanning the treeline.

 

Tilly: “She’s one of our best girls, you know. Back when the Fall started, in 2022, maybe, Jay rescued her from that sorry excuse of a boyfriend. The guy had her out scavenging scraps while he sat on his ass blowing a fan in his face. Didn’t even know what the outside world looked like.”

 

Chezter tilted his head, humored, listening.

 

Tilly: “Jay told me her boyfriend was sloppy. Too weak to fight. One day, Josie came home with a vase of white Camellia flowers — her favorite. Said it was her dog’s name. That idiot called her a whore, told her she was nobody. When Jay took her under his wing, she took those flowers out the vase and threw them at him. Glass shattered his elbows—and his ego. Then she rode with Jay back to our old compound.”

 

Chezter’s eyes softened behind the black lenses of his mask.

 

Tilly: “She kept those flowers for months. Said they reminded her of loyalty. Guess she found that here.”

 

They walked in silence for a while, breath puffing out like ghosts.

 

Tilly: “I wasn’t kind to her at first. To any of the girls. You know, I used to be a lawyer’s assistant before all this.”

 

Chezter glanced over.

 

Tilly: “Yeah. Crooked bastard. Back then, it was ‘I’m Tillifer Dawn, here’s your coffee, boss.’ And every time he took a sip, I hoped it’d close his throat. The day the dead rose, he tried to lock me in the office with him. Said his family was being held for ransom, said his father needed medicine—lies stacked on lies. The pig wanted me because he thought I was the last woman on earth.”

 

Her voice cracked a little, like an old record. “The truth is, he didn’t have anybody. When the hoard came to the westside, he was passed out drunk. I opened the door. Let them in his office. He didn’t wake up. They just tore at him.”

 

Chezter nodded once — no judgment, no pity.

 

Tilly: “After that, I stole his car and met Jay. He saved me. Weeks later, Josie saved me, too, in her own way. She reminded me what softness looked like. All a girl really wants is flowers and protection.”

 

Chezter reached into his satchel and pulled out a wad of old cash, edges frayed and stained.

 

Tilly blinked, then laughed. 

 

“You asshole. What are you even doing with that cash?”

 

Chezter rubbed his gloved hands together, miming fire.

 

Tilly shook her head. 

 

“You’re out of your damn mind. But yeah...I guess a girl needs money for fire.”

 

She laughed. Chezter gave a thumbs-up in agreement. 

 

The forest answered with a scream.

 

SHHHHHOOOOOOON!

 

A blur shot past them — a man strapped to a burning jetpack, body twisting, face peeled with cold. He hit a tree like a meteor, exploded into a burst of smoke and blood.

 

BAM!

 

Tilly: “What the hell!?”

 

Another came screaming through the sky. 

 

GZOOOM!

 

Then another. 

 

GHHHHING!

 

Dozens of them, junk-built jetpacks spitting orange flame across the snow.

 

Tilly: “Move!”

 

They ran. 

 

Behind them, the air turned into chaos — homeless men in rags and bomber jackets chanting through cracked voices, “KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM!” as they launched themselves like suicidal fireworks.

 

Chezter grabbed Tilly’s hand, yanking her behind a snowbank as one of the jetpackers spiraled down and exploded just yards away. Shrapnel peppered the trees.

 

BOOOOM!

 

They started running again — lungs burning, boots slamming through the white drifts. 

 

Ahead, a faint shimmer of movement — a Greaper hoard, staggering through the fog, hundreds of them heading east.

 

NU Kingdom territory.

 

Tilly froze. “Oh, no…”

 

RAHHHH!!!!

 

The hoard approached them. Chezter stepped in front of Tilly and crouched low. 

 

ZJJJHHIIING!

 

Another jetpacker came spinning out of the sky straight toward the undead crowd. 

 

VOOM!

 

Chezter leaped forward, caught the man midair by the straps, and slammed him into the ground.

 

POOM!

 

The jetpack buzzed angrily. 

 

BZZZGHH! BZZGHH!

 

Chezter flipped the kill switch.

 

The bomber lay twitching, beard matted with ice, pupils blown wide. His breath reeked of chemicals and decay. His eyes weren’t even focusing on Chezter — just staring past him at nothing; looking side to side.

 

“Gone,” Chezter muttered under his breath.

 

Another bomber hit the hoard.

 

BOOOOOM! 

 

PLACKKK!

 

Flesh and snow burst upward like a geyser of rot. 

 

The shockwave knocked trees sideways.

 

The man under Chezter began to shake, teeth gnashing. 

 

GNARR!

 

He bit down hard on Chezter’s glove before shoving himself upright, reigniting his jetpack, and launching headfirst into the crowd.

 

Another explosion ripped through the night.

 

BOOOOM!

 

Chezter looked down at what the man had dropped — a small medicine container, rolling through the snow. He picked it up. The label was half-peeled, but he knew it instantly. 

 

Suicide pills. 

 

The same brand he’d once used to poison Sunny’s drink, back when their friendship had been a war...and business.

 

He stared at it for a heartbeat, then threw it into the snow. 

 

“Not again,” he muttered.

 

Tilly: “Chezter! We gotta go!”

 

He turned. The horizon was glowing — more jetpackers diving, Greapers burning, the undead torn between hunger and confusion.

 

BAAAM!

 

Chezter and Tilly ran northeast, detouring through the frozen timber.

 

Behind them, the horde continued going east, straight toward the NU Kingdom. The bombers — insane, uncoordinated, suicidal — were somehow helping to contain it, sacrificing themselves in a grotesque ballet of flame and blood.

 

From the ridge, Chezter and Tilly looked back at the carnage — sky on fire, snow black with smoke, the night echoing with the jetpackers’ final chant.

 

“KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM!”

 

The world burned, and the sky lit up like the Fourth of July for ghosts.

 

SUNNY JEAN

 

The knock at the door was soft — three polite beats that sounded almost out of place in a world that screamed. Still, Sunny heard it like a gunshot in his ribs. He was in the King’s rented lodge with Jessica, the room warmed by a single lamp and the smell of old whiskey. The place looked borrowed and fragile: a temporary crown for people who’d lost real thrones.

 

Jessica owned the Crazy House once. Now the Crazy House was a slab of memory draped in bullet holes. Sunny lived at the Davenport Zoo with Layla and Tilly. Chezter lived wherever his boots fell asleep. Tonight, the three were supposed to be off the streets, safe under the King’s roof. But safety had a way of breaking.

 

Sunny climbed the stairs two at a time. He found Jessica at the small bedroom mirror, shoulders squared, fingers moving with machine precision as she swapped her tank top for armor. Her ponytail was a whip of dirty blonde, one side already knotted with grime, the scar over her right eye pale and angry. Her drumsticks sat in a custom holster across her chest like twin promises.

 

She moved with a kind of coiled violence — anger braided into tenderness. Sunny watched her pick up a black long-sleeve and pull it on, then the camo pants and stiff combat boots. The outfit fit her like a second skin she’d earned through blood.

 

“Hey,” Sunny said, keeping his voice low. He tried to make it casual. “How you holdin’?”

 

Jessica didn’t look at him. Her jaw worked. 

 

“I’ll be okay,” she muttered. The words were small, brittle.

 

“You know we’re gonna get the Crazy House back, right?” He edged closer, like he could bridge something with proximity alone.

 

She finally met his eyes. They were wet around the edges. 

 

“Yeah. I know.” 

 

The answer was automatic, practiced; it didn’t mean peace.

 

There was an odd hush. Jessica was usually the spark, the laugh halfway through a grenade. Now the laughter had gone missing. Something heavier lived under her skin — a pressure Sunny recognized and feared. He’d seen it before in other people: a pressure that bent them until they snapped.

 

She shrugged out of the long-sleeve shirt to check the straps on a chest rig, then froze like a silhouette caught in flame. 

 

“You goin’ Rambo on us?” he tried, offering a crooked grin.

 

“Not in the mood for jokes, Sunny.” Her voice carried the warning of a blade sliding from a sheath. She clipped her drumstick holsters in place, each snap a small finality.

 

His smile faded. 

 

“I’m sorry,” he said instead, real and useless as a coin in a river.

 

She let out a laugh that broke like glass. 

 

“I just… I need to go out for a bit. I know you don’t like me goin’ alone, but today’ll be the last day. Promise.” She turned her hands over on the dresser, palms open like someone checking herself for the last time.

 

In the dim light, Sunny’s eyes stung. Tears rose, and he blinked them back like they were foreign currency. 

 

“Don’t,” she said, almost tender. “Don’t cry. I spent all morning doing that.”

 

He laughed, half-choked. 

 

“I really liked Cody.” The admission tasted like rust.

 

She flinched. 

 

“Yeah? I was an asshole to him, Sunny. I feel—” Her voice cut, then steadied. “I feel like I should’ve been there. I didn’t do enough.”

 

She steadied herself, planted both hands on the dresser, knuckles white. The air around her vibrated — equal parts sorrow and something that smelled like petrol and thunder. 

 

“I’m going to find the guy who killed Cody,” she said, words sharpened into a vow. “I’m going to—” She pulled the drumstick from its holster as though she could finish the sentence with bone and wood. “—put both sticks in his eye—”

 

“Jess.” Sunny reached out, a hand on her forearm. His grip was warm, grounding. “You don’t have to do this by yourself.”

 

Her breath hitched. Words choked up behind her throat. For a second, she was a little kid again, furious and terrified. The mask of bravado slipped. The drumsticks clattered against the dresser until she caught them and held them like a lifeline.

 

They folded into each other without theatrics — two silhouettes collapsing inward, a hug that smelled of gun oil and old whiskey. Jessica buried her face in Sunny’s shoulder, and he felt the tremor there, the kind of shaking that comes from being too full of a thing for too long.

 

“Be safe out there,” he whispered into the curve of her neck. It wasn’t an order; it was a prayer disguised as a command.

 

She pulled back, wiped at her face with the back of her hand. There was a glint, raw and feral, in her eyes. 

 

“I’ll be back,” she said. It wasn’t a promise so much as a threat to the darkness that took people: a warning to anyone who thought they could break them.

 

Sunny let her go, watching her tighten the last strap on her boots. The lamp cast bar shadows across her face, carving her cheekbones like a sculptor at work. For a long moment, they just looked at each other — two soldiers measuring odds in the silence before the fight.

 

The mental fight.

 

 

THE CIRCLE CREW 

 

 

The Crazy House smoked where it sat — a hulking skeleton of drywall and neon nightmares. Greapers lurked like bad memories in the yard, twitching at the smell of old blood and the echo of gunfire that had stopped weeks ago. 

 

Inside, bodies still lay where they fell; Cody’s face was half-buried in a magazine, eyes frozen open like coins.

 

VROOOOOM!

 

A van tore the silence — bright, ridiculous, and armored. Bullhorns mounted to its grill, windows bulletproof, sheets of corrugated metal riveted to the doors. It slammed to a stop with a sound like a beast clearing its throat. 

 

Six silhouettes spilled out and moved like choreography: orange, grey, yellow, pink, blue, red — a walking palette of menace. Each mask bore the circle emblem: a stitched white ring framing a face, three slashes cutting through eyes and mouth like a logo made for fear.

 

They were the Circle Crew, and they treated territory like a brand.

 

They stepped lightly and sure over the threshold, spears humming faintly, crossbows cradled like instruments. The smell hit them — bleach, rot, old perfume. The first Greaper shuffled up, jaw unhinged. 

 

SLEW!

 

A spear arc, a neck snap; the creature folded and painted the floor in dark petals.

 

Inside, they moved with purpose. One kicked open a door, another cleared a hallway with a short burst from a suppressed crossbow. When they found Mosley’s scattered arsenal laid out like offerings on a broken table, their leader (orange) crouched and ran fingers over the rifles, weighing metal as if choosing fruit.

 

They didn’t linger. They scooped up the dead—Greapers and humans alike—shouldered them like sacks, and carried bodies out to the rear where a dented dumpster waited. They heaved the lid, shoved the corpses inside, and pushed the bin like a battering ram. It rolled across the yard, over cracked concrete, and down the slope toward the road where the snow had turned to slush.

 

WHAM!

 

At the bottom, the dumpster hit a pothole and threw itself open. Flesh and blankets and blood tumbled free; Cody’s booted feet stuck up like a homeless flag. The Circle Crew watched from the top of the rise as the bodies spilled into the gutter and floated away when the meltwater took them.

 

They wiped their hands on their sleeves like men who had finished a job.

 

Inside, in the wing of the Crazy House spared only by luck, a ragged cluster of survivors huddled. 

 

Thumbs — a man with knuckle scars and eyes that never stayed still — sat on a bed, hollow-cheeked. 

 

Chucky rocked softly at the window, fingers picking at a hole in the curtain. 

 

Darius crouched in a corner, palms shaking, the last of the drugs crawling out of his veins and leaving terror in their place. He stared at anything that moved and nothing that stayed.

 

The orange-masked leader pushed the door open until it slammed against the wall. He leaned in, voice metallic through the mask. 

 

“Come with us.”

 

Darius blinked. 

 

“What is… what is this?” His throat made the sound of someone choking on winter.

 

The grey one — Amanda, the only voice that carried a softness behind armor — stepped forward and knelt low so her masked face was level with Darius’s. 

 

“We’re the Circle Crew,” she said. The mask made her statement sound like a covenant. “We clear zones, rescue people, and put down the dead who don’t need saving. You survived a bad place. You’re with us now.”

 

Darius laughed at first — a hiccup of disbelief that dissolved into a sob. “There was—” He swallowed a memory whole, and it came back as a broken sentence. “Some man. He… he killed my friends. Have you seen Jessica? Jessica—she’s my friend.”

 

“Jessica?” The blue-masked member cocked his head. The yellow one checked the room, spine tight like a hunting bow. “We can look. But you need to come with us. You’re not safe here.”

 

Amanda’s gloved hand reached out, steady. 

 

“I think you’ve been through a lot, honey. Let’s get you cleaned up.” Her voice was softer than the breath in winter. She smelled faintly of diesel and citrus — antiseptic camouflage.

 

Darius hiccupped, eyes huge. 

 

“B-b-but—”

 

The red member moved like a closing hinge. 

 

“Load them,” he said, curt and efficient. “Amanda, get ‘em in the van. We can’t have visitors in our new place, not yet.”

 

They moved with violent tenderness: Gently lifting Thumbs into a wheelchair, securing Chucky’s trembling limbs, easing Darius into a spare harness that felt like a promise. The pink-masked fighter dabbed at a wound with a square of cloth, whispering nonsense supposed to be comfort: “We’ll find your people. We’ll find Jessica.”

 

Darius pressed his face into his knees and shook, a small animal learning to trust hands again. 

 

“She has a large cut across her right eye.”

 

Outside, the Circle Crew slammed the van doors and the bullhorns coughed a warning into the night. They rolled away like they’d never been there, paint bright against the grey, leaving the Crazy House to its ghosts and the snow to cover what it could.

 

As they disappeared, the orange leader stared in the rearview mirror at his own face ringed by white stitches and three slashes. He tapped the dashboard twice, a ritual, a self-reminder: territory, rescue, brand. He didn’t know Jessica yet, but he’d heard the name the way some people hear gunfire: a call that required an answer.

 

Darius watched the taillights eat into the horizon, and for a second — a shallow, trembling second — he believed someone had come to get him.

 

LAYLA

 

The afternoon sun bled orange across the shattered skyline of Million Bay, the kind of light that felt both holy and cruel. Inside the cracked walls of the Davenport Zoo, the last sanctuary for the broken, Layla stirred awake beneath tangled blankets. The California King bed she shared with Sunny Jean and Tilly was half-empty, smelling faintly of whiskey, sweat, and the ghost of celebration.

 

She blinked up at the cracked ceiling, where vines snuck through old skylights. 

 

Another day in paradise.

 

Layla rolled over and stretched. Her body ached from nights spent drinking and mornings spent surviving. The three of them—Layla, Tilly, and Sunny—were more than a team. They were a therapy group with weapons and hangovers.

 

Sunny was chaos and comfort mixed in one man—her savior, her problem, her reason to still believe in something. Tilly was her mirror: another woman who’d crawled through fire and came out sharp-edged but warm underneath. They’d lost too much to play with labels. Love, grief, and survival were all the same drug now.

 

Layla pushed herself out of bed, bare feet cold against the concrete floor. The zoo was her cathedral now. She rebuilt it plank by plank, nail by nail. On quiet days, she could almost hear the laughter of her sisters echoing through the exhibits, their ghosts pacing the old lion cages and aquarium halls.

 

They didn’t haunt her—they guided her.

 

Out in the courtyard, the wind carried the distant clang of metal and faint music from Sunny’s corner workshop. She smiled, brushing back her hair. For a second, the world almost felt alive again.

 

She strapped her sidearm to her thigh and started her daily rounds, patrolling the perimeter fence. Every evening, before the sun died, she locked the front gate — a ritual born from muscle memory and paranoia.

 

It used to be witches and warlocks breaking through the old gates, casting curses on the survivors. Now, it was worse: looters, hybrids, things that whispered through vents and wore people’s faces.

 

Layla pulled the chain tight, wrapping it twice, the padlock clinking against steel. That’s when she saw it.

 

A figure crawling in the distance.

 

Her stomach clenched.

 

At first, she thought it was another Greaper, dragging itself through the snow, but the color was wrong. This one wore red—a robe torn and matted with dirt, its hood half over a gaunt face. The body slumped forward, moving inch by inch, leaving streaks in the frost.

 

Layla’s heart stuttered. 

 

“No way…”

 

She ran to the gate, threw the lock free, and sprinted down the path toward him. Her boots kicked up white dust as the wind howled through the broken animal enclosures.

 

“Zepp!” she yelled, voice cracking against the silence. “Zepp, is that you!?”

 

The man lifted his head. Beneath the grime, a faint smile curved his cracked lips. Zepp. Once her friend, once her ally in the Code-4 community before it all fell apart.

 

Now, he looked like a ghost that had forgotten to die.

 

Layla dropped to her knees beside him. His robe was soaked through with blood and mud, his bronze hands trembling as he clutched a satchel. She pulled it open and stared — inside were rat carcasses, bandages, and expired bottles of headache medicine.

 

“Jesus, Zepp…” she whispered. “What the hell happened to you?”

 

He looked up, eyes bloodshot but kind. 

 

“I… I lost myself, your majesty.” His voice cracked on the word, small and reverent. It was a habit, not sarcasm — an echo of the way survivors used to call her #1 when she led the old refuge.

 

Tears blurred her sight for a second. 

 

“You don’t have to call me that anymore,” she said softly. “C’mon. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

 

She slung his arm over her shoulder, half-carrying him back toward the zoo gates. His body was light, too light — more bone than man.

 

As they crossed under the archway that still read DAV NP RT ZOO, the wind whispered through the broken cages again. For a moment, Layla imagined the lions were watching, the ghosts of her sisters smiling from the shadows.

 

Somewhere far behind them, thunder rolled — or maybe gunfire. Layla didn’t turn around. She just kept walking, guiding Zepp home.

 

Inside those gates, for the first time in months, she wasn’t alone.

 

SKRATCH

 

The wind knifed through the valley as Jessica “Skratch” Volkov trudged along a cracked road five miles out from the NU Kingdom. Her boots sank into frost, her mind sank deeper. Grief had its own gravity.

 

She found the old bar by accident — a forgotten roadhouse with half its roof caved in and a neon sign that flickered OPEN like a bad joke. The door creaked when she pushed it open, and the smell hit her: mold, spilled liquor, faint decay.

 

Inside, Greapers wandered lazily between toppled stools. 

 

Easy kills.

SPLAT!

 

Jessica whipped her drumsticks out, the metal tips glinting under what little light remained. She cracked the first Greaper’s skull clean, sent the second one sprawling, and kicked the third through the jukebox. Silence followed — the kind of silence that knew it had blood in it.

 

She slid behind the counter, found a bottle of vodka still half-full and dusty, and poured it into a cracked glass. Her hands trembled as she raised it.

 

“To Cody,” she muttered, voice breaking. “To everyone who didn’t make it.”

 

The liquor burned down her throat, sharp and clean. 

 

She poured another.

 

For the first time in weeks, Jessica allowed herself to stop moving. She thought about the Crazy House, about the way its halls echoed with laughter before it turned to gunfire. About Cody — his calm, his stupid grin, his loyalty. She thought about Sunny’s eyes when he told her to be careful.

 

She took another drink. 

 

“Careful’s dead,” she whispered.

 

The door creaked open behind her. 

 

Instinct kicked in. 

 

Jessica spun on her heel, drumsticks drawn, body tense.

 

Three strangers stood in the doorway — two women and one man, all dressed like scavengers.

 

Johnny: “Whoa, easy, girl! We just came in for a drink like you!”

 

Jessica’s grip loosened. They weren’t wearing suits like the Nomen. No black-and-white uniforms, no smug insignias. Just survivors — or at least that’s what they wanted her to think.

 

Jessica hesitated. Maybe, just maybe, the world hadn’t completely turned to shit.

 

She slid her weapons back into their holsters. 

 

“Then have a drink.”

 

Helga: (grinning wide) “Ooh, you’re dangerous. I like you.”

 

Skratch: “Yeah. I’ve been in danger boot camp lately.”

 

Johnny: “How’s that goin’ for you?”

 

She smirked, spinning the glass between her fingers. 

 

“I’d rather talk about how an asshole like you got lucky with these two babes. I’m Jessica — friends call me Skratch.”

 

Iris: “Oh my god, Skratch is such a cute nickname! Why didn’t I think of that?”

 

Skratch: “Because your eye isn’t cut, bitch.”

 

They laughed — a rough, human sound in an inhuman world.

 

Jessica sized them up.

Johnny was lanky. A raspy voice, bleach-blonde, tattooed shoulder, wearing a white tank top despite the cold. His coat hung from Iris’s hand — a platinum blonde with a braid down one side and a flower tied to the end like she’d forgotten what century it was. Helga, a messy brunette, wore plaid and bracelets that jingled when she moved.

 

They were armed, but not much. Knives. Small. Manageable.

 

Johnny: “Sorry, not being a gentleman. Name’s Johnny Hystory. This is Helga with the jewelry, and Iris with the braid. Where are you from?”

 

Skratch: “Nowhere. My place got shot up.”

 

Iris: “Crossbows?” she asked casually, flipping her braid.

 

Skratch: (flat) “No. Guns.”

 

Johnny: (laughing) “Guns? Where’s your time machine, sweetheart?”

 

Jessica’s jaw tightened. 

 

“Somebody found guns,” she said. “And they used them.”

 

A shadow passed through her tone. The others noticed but didn’t push.

 

Helga broke the tension. 

 

“Oh my god — they have vinyls!” She darted behind the bar, flipping through old records with childlike glee. “Even jazz!”

 

Johnny: “Helga, we don’t even have power to play those.”

 

Helga: “So? What’s wrong with looking at the covers? It’s art!”

 

Skratch: “We should start a band,” she said dryly, sipping her drink. “I play drums. I’m sure we can find a generator somewhere.”

 

Johnny: “No way!? I sing. Don’t fuck with me, Jessica. I’d love to start a band!”

 

Iris: “Bassist over here.”

 

Helga: (still flipping) “Yeah, and I play guitar. Look at this album! Classic!”

 

Johnny: (grinning) “Then let’s toast to that. To the High Flyers.”

 

Iris: “I like it!”

 

Jessica smirked. 

 

“Catchy name. Sounds like you actually believe in something.”

 

Johnny turned to the counter, reaching for a glass — but the move was too smooth. His shoulders shifted wrong. Jessica noticed the glance he threw to Iris, the faint nod.

 

They were about to rob her.

 

Jessica didn’t flinch. Just swirled her drink again.

 

“It’s cold outside,” she said. “Why are you in a tank top, little man?”

 

Johnny’s smile stretched. 

 

“Nothing warms me up anymore.” He laughed. “Except alcohol.”

 

Then the door exploded inward.

 

BOOM!

 

The wood shattered off its hinges as Aiden and three Nomen stormed in, pistols raised. Their black suits gleamed with frost and gunmetal.

 

Johnny: “Yo! What the hell—”

 

BANG! BANG! BANG!

 

Bullets shredded the air. Johnny’s body convulsed — chest, ribs, neck — before slamming into the bar. Jessica dove behind him, glass exploding over her head. A bullet tore through her shoulder; hot pain screamed down her arm.

 

She bit back a yell, grabbed Johnny’s body, and used it for cover.

 

Aiden: “Hold your fire! Save your bullets!”

 

The gunfire stopped.

 

Jessica’s blood dripped onto the counter. Her breath came fast and sharp.

 

Aiden’s boots clicked closer. 

 

“You can’t run forever, Skratch.”

 

Jessica’s reply was the sound of her glass bottle shattering against the wall.

 

BANG!

 

She burst through the back door, slamming it into the guard outside. His nose broke with a sick pop, blood spraying as he crumpled. She sprinted down the alley, clutching her bleeding shoulder.

 

Behind her, Aiden’s voice barked: 

 

“After her! Go!”

 

Inside, Helga and Iris trembled, knives half-drawn.

 

Aiden: “Who are you!?”

 

Helga and Iris: “No one! Nobody!”

 

Helga: “We were— we were trying to kill her!”

 

Aiden paused, studying them. His gun lowered slightly.

 

“Give me your weapons.”

 

They obeyed, hands shaking, sliding the knives across the counter.

 

Aiden holstered his pistol and sighed. 

 

“Thanks.” 

 

He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small, blood-smeared business card. 

 

“That’s our address. Sorry about your friend.” His tone softened for a heartbeat. “That girl is the enemy.”

 

The women nodded wordlessly.

 

“Let’s move,” Aiden said. The Nomen filed out, boots echoing.

 

He stopped at the back door, kneeling beside his fallen guard, the one with the broken nose. 

 

Blood steamed in the cold air. Aiden exhaled — exhaustion disguised as control.

 

“Get up,” he muttered, though the man didn’t move.

 

Outside, on the highway beyond the trees, Jessica ran through the snow, breath ragged, hand pressed to her wound.

 

The sky over Million State was black and endless. Somewhere in the distance, the fires of the Crazy House still burned — and behind her, the sound of engines started.

 

The hunt was on.