CYAN

I have always known Cassian Wolfe was crazy.

Possibly crazier than me, which is saying something, considering I have spent the better part of a decade setting a very high bar for what qualifies as a psychological disaster.

Most people think Cassian is the grounded one... the stoic, the anchor, the man with the plan. But you have to be a special kind of insane to carry a four-year-old ghost around in your pocket and let it dictate every breath you take.

The facility was a playground of concrete and shadows. I worked through the floors with the utmost efficiency.

Emilio’s men were numerous, but they were amateurs compared to the sheer mechanical force of a man who has nothing to lose.

I cleared them floor by floor, the math of it resolving itself in my head. Fifteen men. Give or take.

The "give or take" didn’t bother me; violence, when it’s functional, is just another form of housekeeping.

I did what needed doing without the heavy emotional weight other people attach to the act of pulling a trigger or breaking a limb.

What did bother me... what sat in the back of my throat like a swallowed needle... was Cassian.

He had gone after Emilio alone. While bleeding from half a dozen different places.

He was out there somewhere in the dark, chasing a man who had nothing left but his own desperation, and I was stuck here doing the chores.

I paused between the second and third floors, pressing the earpiece into my canal until it hurt.

"Reid," I said, my voice sharp enough to cut.

"I’m tracking him," Reid replied. He sounded like a man who was trying very hard to pretend his heart rate hadn’t doubled.

"Tell me everything. Now. Don’t you dare skip a single detail."

The update came in staccato bursts. The motorcycle. The route.

Each word landed in my chest with increasing weight. I could feel the space where Cassian usually existed in my peripheral vision feeling dangerously empty.

I finished the last floor, not even counting the bodies anymore, and sprinted toward the exit.

I didn’t care about the building. I didn’t care about the mission. I just needed to find the man who was currently chasing after his enemy with nothing but a gun and stubbornness.

I reached the vehicle bay. It was a cavern of silence now, save for the three bodies cooling on the floor. No Cassian. No Emilio.

Just the lingering scent of burnt rubber and the evidence of a struggle. The bay door was wide open, a gaping mouth leading into the night.

"He’s heading for the port," Reid’s voice crackled. "Emilio had a yacht moored at Pier 14. That’s the exit strategy."

I was already moving back toward the main entrance. My mind was a feverish calculator, running through the distance and the time. I needed a vehicle. I needed one ten seconds ago.

Charles Wolfe’s men were clustered at the entrance, looking like a collection of statues in tactical gear.

The SUVs they had arrived in were still idling, their exhausts huffing white plumes into the cool air. They had come in fast and didn’t plan on leaving until the mop-up was done.

I didn’t ask permission. I didn’t have the temperament for it.

I approached the closest car. A man stood beside the driver’s door, his hand on his holster.

He turned as I neared, his expression shifting from professional alertness to confusion. I didn’t give him time to resolve the shift.

It happened fast... a sharp, efficient strike that sent him to the ground before he could register the intent.

"I’m sorry," I said, and for a fleeting second, I actually meant it. "I need to borrow this."

I was in the driver’s seat before he could draw breath. The commander... the same one who had looked at me with such disdain inside, appeared in the headlights, his face a mask of fury. "What are you—"

I rolled the window down just enough to scream over the engine. "Cassian is heading to the port. Following Emilio. Alone. Send whoever you can. Now!"

The commander’s face went slack for a heartbeat, then tightened. "Copy. Move!"

I didn’t wait to see him bark the orders. I floored it.

Reid was a constant, frantic presence in my ear, calling out directions like a digital navigator of the damned.

I followed them with a recklessness that would have made a professional driver weep. The SUV was faster than it should have been driven, and I was driving it faster than that.

Anxiety began to build... a specific, jagged kind of panic that lives in a different place than my usual state of being.

Usually, my anxiety is high but managed; it’s a familiar hum, a thrill-seeking companion.

This was different. This was the anxiety of something real being at risk. Something that could not be replaced by any amount of adrenaline or self-destruction.

You better be alive, I thought, my knuckles white against the steering wheel. You absolute bastard. You better be standing when I get there. If you die—

The thought stopped. It hit a wall of static. If you die, what happens to me?

It wasn’t a rhetorical question. I was genuinely asking my own psyche, and the answer wasn’t available.

I have never had to answer it. I have never had to imagine a world where Cassian wasn’t there.

He was the fixed point. The north star. The one person in the universe who looked at the mess of my soul and didn’t blink.

A surge of jealousy arrived alongside the fear, quieter and more shameful. It was the specific, bitter jealousy of watching someone set themselves on fire for a ghost.

Four years gone, and he was still burning for Julian. Still willing to bleed out for a memory that couldn’t hold him back.

He would never burn like this for me.

It was a true thought, an unwanted one. I kept it in the place where I keep the things that hurt in that particular, silent way that doesn’t make a noise.

I pushed the thought away as the salt air hit my lungs. The port was appearing through the windshield.

I slammed the car into park and was out before it had finished rocking. I sprinted toward the water, my boots echoing off the cold concrete.

The night was dark, illuminated only by a few flickering pier lights that seemed to be struggling to stay alive.

In the distance, I saw them.

Cassian and Emilio. Two silhouettes against the black water. The confrontation was happening; I could see the gun, the posture of a man who had finally cornered his prey.

Even from this distance, I could read the scene: Cassian had him. Emilio was on his knees. This was almost over.

I felt a momentary wash of relief, but then I saw Cassian gesture toward the dock. He was letting Emilio move toward the yacht. What is he doing? Why is he letting him—

Then, the world shattered.

Multiple shots rang out from the shadows... angles I hadn’t seen, shooters I hadn’t accounted for. I watched as they hit Cassian. Once. Twice. A third time.

Something seized in my chest, a physical tightening so violent it felt like my heart had been caught in a vice.

I was watching the one thing I could not afford to lose being taken from me in real-time.

My body responded before my mind could catch up. The hyperventilation started instantly, that familiar, terrifying tightening of the throat.

My vision began to narrow, the edges of the world turning into a grey, tunneling blur. It was a panic attack arriving in a body that was already at its absolute limit.

I needed to stop it. Now. If I went down here, I was useless. I’d be just another body on a dock while Cassian bled into the harbor.

I slammed my hand against my sternum. Once. Hard. The pain cut through the fog, but it wasn’t enough. The tunnel was still closing in. My breath was coming in jagged, useless gasps.

I reached for the knife at my belt. It was always there. I didn’t think; I just drew the blade across my palm.

The cut was sharp, specific, and the pain was immediate. It was an anchor. The sting of the steel grounding me in the present, pulling the world back into focus.

The tunnel receded.

My breath returned.. ragged, then steadying. The world was wide again. The dock was visible.

Cassian was still standing. He was shooting back, his movements heavy but determined. Emilio was crawling toward the edge.

I was back. I was fully back. And I was moving.

I ran. The dock felt like it was miles long, the wood vibrating under my feet. I saw the men who had shot Cassian go down under his return fire. I saw Emilio take the final hits and stop moving.

But then I saw Cassian.

He was still standing, but the way he was standing was all wrong. His weight distribution was off, his body over-compensating for things that had clearly stopped working correctly. He looked like a tower with its foundation crumbling.

"Cassian!" I screamed.

I needed him to hear me. I had read enough about shock and blood loss to know that the voice is a lifeline.

If he heard me, he’d stay. He’d keep the lights on for one more minute.

"CASSIAN!"

He turned. I saw the recognition in his eyes, that brief, flickering moment of Oh, it’s you.

Then, the stagger happened. The body’s accounting was finally presented, and it was an invoice he couldn’t pay.

I was there before the dock could claim him.

My arms went around him, catching his weight. He was real. He was heavy. He was alive. The smell of him, gunpowder, blood, and the scent of the water... filled my senses.

We sank to the wood together. The water lapped beside us, the night air swirling around us, and Emilio lay still just a few yards ahead.

"Stay awake," I whispered. The performance was completely gone. No sarcasm. No masks. Just me. "Cassian. Look at me. I’m here. Stay."

I could feel the warmth of his blood soaking into my clothes. There was too much of it. It was in too many places.

But underneath the terror was a specific, crystalline relief: not yet. Not tonight. Not while I’m here to catch you.

Cassian’s eyes began to close.

"Don’t," I said, my voice cracking. "Don’t you dare."

I pressed my cut palm against his face, leaving a dark, wet mark on his cheek.

Neither of us noticed the irony of it. I just needed him to feel the heat of me.

"I’m here," I repeated, a prayer and a command all in one. "Keep your eyes open for me."

Behind us, the sound of reinforcements arrived, the heavy thud of boots, the shouting of men, the flashing of blue and red lights. I didn’t look back.

I didn’t care about the cavalry. I only cared about the one fixed point in every version of my life, bleeding on a dock at eight in the night.