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"Don't move."
The voice came from behind me, low and cold, and I froze with my hand halfway to the fire escape ladder. The payout notification was still glowing in my vision—2,400 credits, enough to keep my brother breathing for another two weeks—but the red alert underneath it pulsed harder now.
Hunter Kael Voss entered the block.
And now he was right behind me.
"Hands where I can see them," he said.
I raised them slowly, palms out. My knife was strapped to my thigh, useless unless I could turn around. The alley was narrow, brick on both sides, one exit blocked by a chain-link fence. The other exit was him.
"Wrong girl," I said. "I'm just passing through."
"You're Raina Holt." Not a question. His footsteps were quiet, deliberate. "You pulled a chip off a dead runner three days ago. You've been flagged ever since."
My stomach dropped. The interface in my head flickered, unhelpful.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Turn around."
I turned. Slowly.
Kael Voss didn't look like the hunters I'd run from before. Those guys wore tactical gear, carried stun batons, moved in packs. This one wore a long coat, dark gray, clean lines, no logos. His face was sharp, pale, maybe thirty. Dark hair, dark eyes. He held a gun, but it wasn't pointed at me. Not yet.
He was looking at my wrist.
"Show me the chip," he said.
I kept my hands up. "What chip?"
His jaw tightened. "The one that's running a rogue progression system in your head right now. The one that's lighting you up like a beacon to every debt collector and corp enforcer in the city."
I didn't move.
He stepped closer. Not close enough to grab, but close enough that I could see the faint scar along his jawline, the way his coat didn't quite hide the shoulder rig underneath. "You don't know what you're carrying, do you?"
"I know it pays," I said. "That's enough."
"It's going to get you killed."
"So are you."
He almost smiled. Almost. "I'm not here to kill you."
"Then what do you want?"
"I want you to come with me before someone else finds you first."
I laughed. Short, bitter. "Right. Because hunters are known for their charity."
"I'm not a hunter."
"You just said you tracked me."
"I did." He lowered the gun, but didn't holster it. "I was sent to recover the chip. Alive or dead, they didn't care. But the second I pulled your file, I knew something was wrong."
"What file?"
"Yours. Or what's left of it." He tilted his head, watching me. "Someone scrubbed you, Raina. Wiped your records, your biometrics, your entire history before age sixteen. The only reason you're still in the system at all is because you owe money."
My pulse spiked. The interface flickered again, throwing up a new notification I didn't ask for.
[ALERT: External scan detected. Source: Kael Voss, registry 47-KV. Threat assessment: UNKNOWN.]
I forced myself to breathe. "You're lying."
"Am I?" He took another step. Close now. Too close. I could see the flecks of gray in his eyes, the tension in his shoulders. "Then tell me why the system you're running was supposed to be destroyed six years ago. Tell me why the man you stole it from was marked for termination the same night you went off the grid."
I couldn't.
Because I didn't remember.
The alley felt smaller. Colder. My back hit the brick wall, and I realized I'd been retreating without meaning to.
"I don't know you," I said. "I don't know what you want. But if you think I'm just going to follow you into some black site because you said something's wrong with my file—"
"I'm not asking you to trust me." His voice was flat. Final. "I'm telling you that in about thirty seconds, a kill squad is going to round that corner, and they will put a bullet in your head before you finish running."
I stared at him.
He stared back.
"Prove it," I said.
He didn't blink. Just raised his wrist and flicked his fingers. A holo-screen materialized between us, pale blue, full of text I couldn't read fast enough. But I saw my name. My brother's name. A bounty.
50,000 credits. Alive preferred. Dead acceptable.
My mouth went dry.
"They're not coming for the chip," Kael said quietly. "They're coming for you."
Footsteps. Heavy boots, multiple pairs, coming fast from the street behind him.
I didn't think. I grabbed his wrist, yanked him sideways into the gap between two dumpsters, and pulled my knife. The blade went to his throat before he could react.
"If you sold me out," I hissed, "I will open you right here."
He didn't fight. Didn't even flinch. Just looked at me, calm, almost curious. "If I sold you out, I wouldn't have shown you the bounty."
The boots were closer now. Voices, clipped and professional. Tactical sweep.
"You led them here."
"No." His voice was steady, even with steel against his skin. "You did. The system you're running sends out a pulse every time it pays you. You hit a 2,400-credit drop ten minutes ago. That's a flare."
I pressed the blade harder. A bead of blood welled up along the edge. "Then why aren't you running?"
"Because I took a contract to bring you in, and I don't break contracts." His eyes didn't leave mine. "But I also don't hand people over to execution teams when the file smells wrong."
"So what, you're my hero now?"
"I'm your best option."
The boots stopped. One of them barked an order. "South alley. Thermal says two."
Kael's hand moved, slow, deliberate. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small gray device, no bigger than a lighter. He pressed it once.
The air around us shimmered. My ears popped.
"Stealth shroud," he said quietly. "Sixty seconds. They'll sweep past us if you stop talking."
I kept the knife where it was. "Why did you take a bullet for your target?"
He blinked. "What?"
"Your coat. Left side. Fresh patch, still stiff. Someone shot at you in the last forty-eight hours, and you didn't shoot back, or you wouldn't still be standing here polite." I leaned in, close enough to feel the heat coming off him, the faint smell of gun oil and rain. "So why?"
His jaw tightened. For the first time, something cracked in that cold, controlled face. "Because the last person I brought in alive got disappeared before I even filed the report. No trial. No record. Just gone."
"And you care?"
"I care about being lied to."
The boots moved past the dumpster. Close. So close I could hear the creak of their gear, the hiss of comms. Then they kept going, toward the fire escape, toward the street beyond.
Kael didn't move. Neither did I.
When the footsteps faded, he spoke again, quieter. "You want to know why I'm here? I pulled your file because I was told you were a low-priority debt runner with a stolen medical chip. That's it. No priors. No flags. Then I opened it and found a kill order buried under a transfer request. Signed by someone who doesn't exist."
"So?"
"So I ran the signature through the archive." His voice was tight now, almost angry. "It matched a black-site termination squad. The kind that only moves when someone at the top wants a problem erased."
I lowered the knife. Just a fraction. "Why would they want me erased?"
"I don't know." He reached up slowly, carefully, and pushed my wrist aside. The knife came away from his throat. "But I'm going to find out."
The shroud flickered. Five seconds left.
"Come with me," he said. "Or run, and see how long you last."
I looked at him. At the blood on his collar. At the way his hand hovered near his gun but didn't draw it.
"If I go with you," I said, "and you try to hand me over—"
"You'll kill me. I know." He almost smiled again. "You've made that very clear."
The shroud died.
I shoved the knife back into its sheath. "Fine. But we do this my way."
"Your way got you a 50,000-credit bounty."
"Your way got you shot."
He turned without answering and started walking, coat swirling behind him. I followed, because I didn't have a better option, and because the interface in my head was doing something it had never done before.
It was scanning him.
Lines of text scrolled past, too fast to read. Then it froze.
[MATCH DETECTED: Kael Voss, registry 47-KV. Access level: ERASURE WITNESS. Status: COMPROMISED.]
[WARNING: This unit was flagged for memory wipe, year 2246. Wipe incomplete. Cognitive degradation possible.]
I stopped walking.
Kael turned, frowning. "What?"
I stared at him. At the man who said I'd been erased. The man who said he didn't break contracts.
The man the system said was supposed to forget.
"You see it, don't you?" His voice was quiet now. Almost resigned. "The interface. It's reading me."
I nodded, slow.
He exhaled, long and tired. "Then you know."
"Know what?"
He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw something like fear in his eyes.
"They tried to erase me too," he said. "And whatever you're carrying—" He gestured at my wrist, at the chip I couldn't see but knew was there. "—was supposed to be erased with you."
The interface flashed red.
[ALERT: LINKED ASSET DETECTED. REVIVAL PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.]
[NEW DIRECTIVE: Survive together, or die incomplete.]
Kael went pale.
"What does that mean?" I said.
He didn't answer.
Because behind us, something exploded.