Chapter 26 · You Ain't the First Ryan

The screen went black and Ryan was already moving.

He didn't wait for Derek to catch up. Didn't wait for his leg to stop shaking or his hands to quit twitching. The footage looped in his head. Natasha leaning over his bed. Her lips forming words he couldn't hear through the cheap clinic glass but his body knew anyway because he'd woken up every time.

Every goddamn time.

Derek grabbed his shoulder in the stairwell. "Kash. Wait."

"Let go."

"You run in there hot you're dead. You get that?"

Ryan shoved him off. "She's been in my head for three months."

"Yeah. So has he." Derek pulled his sidearm and checked the mag. "Your twin's got the same rig. Same nervous system. He knows how you move."

"Then I'll move different."

"You can't move different from yourself, dipshit."

Ryan hit the exit bar and the roof access door slammed open. Wind and rain and the city grid stretched out in every direction, orange and red and the ugly yellow of sodium lights reflecting off wet concrete.

The other Ryan was standing near the edge.

Not standing. Waiting.

Same jacket. Same boots.