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The bullet hits the wall six inches from Ghost's head.
Rona doesn't think. She throws herself between Ghost and the gun. Her father's gun. Grimm's face is white. Not angry-white. Scared-white.
"Move." His voice shakes. "Rona, move now."
"No." Her hand's still on Ghost's wrist. The blood-bond hums under her palm. Warm. Alive. "She's stabilized. I can—"
"I don't care what you can do." Grimm takes a step forward. The gun doesn't waver. "Step away from her."
Ghost laughs. It's wet. Broken. "Too late, Grimm. Look at her hand."
Rona looks down. There's blood on her palm. Not Ghost's blood. Her own. A thin line curves from her wrist to her middle finger. It wasn't there a minute ago.
"What—"
"That's the bond mark." Ghost's grip tightens. "You know what that means. She's linked now. Kill me, you kill part of her."
Grimm's gun hand drops an inch. Just an inch. "You're lying."
"Am I?" Ghost coughs. Red speckles her lips. "You saw Lena's marks. You knew what she could do. This girl's got the same gift. Maybe stronger."
The name hits the air like a grenade. Lena. Mom.
Rona's father goes still. Totally still. The kind of still that comes before violence or collapse. She can't tell which.
"Don't say her name." His voice is flat now. Dead. "You don't get to say her name."
"Why not?" Ghost's eyes fix on him. Even half-dead, she's sharp. "She was my partner. I was there when—"
"Dax." Grimm doesn't look away from Ghost. "Black seal protocol. Now."
Dax moves. Fast. Rona barely sees him pull the suppressor from his vest. He's screwing it onto his sidearm. Calm. Efficient. Like he's done this a hundred times.
"Wait—" Rona twists to keep herself between Ghost and both guns. "You can't. The bond's established. If she dies—"
"Then you learn to live with it." Grimm's jaw is so tight she can see the muscle jump. "Better that than the alternative."
"What alternative?" Rona's voice cracks. She hates that it cracks. "What are you so afraid of?"
Grimm finally looks at her. Really looks at her. For a second she thinks she sees something break behind his eyes.
"You," he says. "I'm afraid of you."
The words don't make sense. She's the family embarrassment. The girl who can't fight, can't track, can't do anything but patch wounds and stay out of the way. What's there to be afraid of?
Ghost makes a sound. Not a laugh. Closer to a sob. "He's afraid you'll figure it out. What Lena figured out. What got her killed."
"Shut up." Grimm raises the gun again. His hand's steady now. Decided. "Rona, last chance. Step away."
Rona looks at her father. At the gun. At Dax, silent and ready. Then at Ghost, bleeding out on the concrete, eyes bright with pain and something else. Desperation. Truth.
She spreads her arms wider.
"No."
For a long moment, nobody moves. The warehouse is silent except for Ghost's ragged breathing and the hum of the blood-bond in Rona's veins. It feels like a thread. Thin. Fragile. But there.
Grimm's face does something complicated. Anger, fear, grief. All at once. All too fast to separate.
"You stupid girl." His voice breaks on the last word. "You stupid, stupid girl. Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"I saved her." Rona lifts her chin. She's shaking. She can feel it in her knees, her hands. But she doesn't move. "That's what I do. I save people."
"She's not people." Grimm gestures with the gun. Sharp. Violent. "She's a Red List fugitive. She killed seventeen people. She burned an estate to the ground. She—"
"She knew my mother."
The words come out louder than she means them to. They echo in the empty space.
Grimm flinches. Actually flinches.
"Your mother," he says slowly, "died in a contract gone wrong. Occupational hazard. You know this."
"That's what you told me." Rona's heart is slamming against her ribs. "But Ghost says different."
"Ghost is a liar and a murderer."
"Maybe." Rona glances down at the woman behind her. Ghost's eyes are half-closed now. Fading. "But she knew Mom's real name. Her old name. The one you never use."
Grimm goes white again. "She told you—"
"Lena." Rona watches his face. "Mom was Lena. Before she was Kash. Before she married you."
Something in her father's expression cracks wide open. For a second he looks old. Older than she's ever seen him.
"Rona." His voice is quiet now. Almost gentle. It's worse than the yelling. "You don't understand. The bond—what you've just done—it's not just a healing link. It's a... conduit. For more than skills."
Her stomach drops. "What do you mean, more than skills?"
Grimm looks at Ghost. Then back at Rona. "Memories," he says. "Strong ones. Traumatic ones. If she dies while you're bonded..."
He doesn't finish. He doesn't have to.
Rona's palm burns. The blood-mark throbs in time with her pulse. With Ghost's pulse.
"Then I won't let her die." She hears how young she sounds. How naive. She doesn't care. "Tell Dax to stand down. I can stabilize her. I can—"
"You can't fix this." Grimm lowers the gun. Not holstering it. Just lowering it. "You've tied yourself to a dead woman. When she goes—and she will go, Rona, that wound is mortal—you're going to see everything she saw. Feel everything she felt. And some of those memories..." He swallows. "Some of those memories will have answers you're not ready for."
"Try me."
The defiance surprises both of them. Rona's never talked back to her father. Not like this. Not with teeth.
Grimm stares at her. Then, slowly, he holsters the gun.
"Fine," he says. "You want the truth? Keep her alive. See what you get."
He turns. Walks toward the warehouse exit. Stops.
"But don't come crying to me when you see your mother's last minutes. When you see who was standing over her body." He looks back over his shoulder. His eyes are dry. Hard. "And don't turn into your mother, Rona. She asked too many questions. It got her killed."
The door slams behind him.
Dax lingers a moment longer. He looks at Rona. At Ghost. His face is unreadable.
"You've got maybe an hour before she crashes again," he says. "Use it wisely."
Then he's gone too.
Rona sinks down beside Ghost. Her legs won't hold her anymore. The blood-mark on her hand pulses. Hot. Insistent.
Ghost's eyes flutter open. "Your dad's a piece of work."
"Yeah." Rona's throat is tight. "He just threatened to let you die so I'd see Mom's last memory. Is that—can the bond really do that?"
"If the bond-holder dies violently?" Ghost's smile is bitter. "Yeah. You get the highlight reel. Last hours. Last days, if the trauma's bad enough." She coughs. More blood. "Your mom's bond-gift was even stronger than yours. She could pull memories from living targets. See their secrets. That's how she found out."
"Found out what?"
Ghost's hand tightens on Rona's wrist. "That the Kash family hunts more than fugitives. That half the Red List bounties are people who found something they shouldn't have. That your grandfather made a deal with—"
She stops. Her eyes go wide. Panicked.
"What? What deal?"
"I can't—" Ghost's breathing speeds up. Shallow. Fast. "The seal. There's a seal on me. If I say too much—"
Her body convulses. Once. Twice. Rona feels it through the bond. A tearing sensation. Like something's trying to rip the connection apart from the inside.
"No no no—" Rona grabs Ghost's face. "Stay with me. Don't talk. Just breathe."
Ghost's eyes lock on hers. "When I go," she whispers, "you'll see. You'll see Lena's last day. Grimm was there. He was there, Rona. He—"
The bond flares white-hot.
Rona gasps. The world tilts. She's not in the warehouse anymore. She's—
She's in a different room. Smaller. Darker. There's blood on the floor. A woman's body. Red hair. Mom's hair.
And standing over her, gun in hand, face twisted in grief and rage—
Dad.
Rona slams back into her own body. She's on her hands and knees. Shaking. The vision lasts only a second. A flash. A preview.
But she saw.
Ghost is still alive. Barely. Her lips move. "Now you know," she breathes. "That wasn't an accident."