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The transport flipped three times before it stopped moving.
I saw the whole thing from two blocks out. Metal screaming against asphalt, sparks arcing up like fireworks, then silence. The kind of silence that meant people were dying while I stood here.
I gunned the ambulance through the intersection. My partner Danny was already on the radio, calling it in. "Code Black, overturned prisoner transport, corner of Fifth and Mendel. We're first on scene."
The dispatcher's voice crackled back. "Copy that. PD is three minutes out. Do not engage until—"
I killed the engine and grabbed my kit. Danny shot me a look.
"Mara, she said wait."
"People don't wait to bleed out."
I was already moving. The transport was on its side, rear doors blown open. Smoke poured from the engine block. I could smell fuel and something else. Copper. A lot of it.
Two guards lay near the cab, not moving. I checked the first one. No pulse. The second had a chunk of metal through his chest. Nothing I could do.
Danny caught up, breathing hard. "Jesus."
"Check the cab," I said. "I'm going in the back."
He started to argue, then saw my face and didn't. Smart man.
The rear compartment was a mess. Restraints hanging loose, bench seating torn from the walls, blood on every surface. And in the far corner, one prisoner still breathing.
Male, maybe thirty, dressed in a gray jumpsuit with a black stripe down the side. High-risk marking. His face was turned away, one arm bent at a bad angle. I moved closer, kit in hand.
"Sir, I'm a paramedic. I need you to stay still."
He didn't respond. I knelt beside him, reaching for his wrist to check his pulse.
That's when he moved.
Fast. Too fast. His good hand shot out and caught my wrist, fingers wrapping all the way around. I tried to pull back and couldn't. It was like being held by a steel clamp.
His head turned. His eyes opened.
They were gray. Flat gray, no warmth in them at all. And he was looking at me like I was a problem he needed to solve.
"Let go," I said. Kept my voice level. "I'm here to help."
His grip tightened. I felt bones shift.
"Let. Go."
Nothing. Just that empty stare.
I did the only thing I could think of. I stopped pulling. Instead I moved closer, putting my free hand flat against his chest.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I said. "I just need to—"
I stopped.
There was nothing under my palm. No heartbeat. No pulse at all.
I pressed harder, shifting my hand, checking for any sign of circulation. People didn't walk around with no heartbeat. They didn't grab you with strength that could snap bone. They were dead.
But he wasn't dead. He was breathing. Staring. Holding me in place like I weighed nothing.
"What the hell are you?"
His eyes changed. Something flickered behind the gray. Confusion, maybe. Or recognition.
Then his whole body went rigid.
A sound came from his chest. Not from his mouth. From inside. A high-pitched whine, like machinery spinning up. His grip on my wrist turned painful. I felt something crack.
"Danny!" I couldn't reach my radio. Couldn't move. "Danny, I need—"
The prisoner's other hand came up, the broken one, and it shouldn't have worked but it did. He grabbed the side of the transport and pulled. Metal shrieked. The whole panel bent inward.
He was tearing through steel.
I shoved my palm harder against his chest. I don't know why. Instinct, maybe. Desperation.
"Stop," I said. "Stop it. You're going to kill me."
The whining sound peaked. His eyes rolled back.
Then my hand got warm.
Not hot. Just warm. Like I'd pressed it against a heating pad. The warmth spread up my arm, into my shoulder, down into my chest. My own heartbeat stuttered, then evened out. Slowed.
And his grip loosened.
The whining sound died. His eyes focused again, gray and confused. He let go of my wrist and pulled back, as far as the cramped space would let him.
"Don't," he said. His voice was rough. "Don't touch me."
I looked down at my hand, still resting against his chest. Under my palm I felt it. Faint, irregular, but there.
A heartbeat.
"What just happened?" I asked.
He didn't answer. He was staring at my hand like it was a weapon.
Footsteps behind me. Danny's voice, urgent. "Mara, PD's here. We need to clear out."
"This man needs medical attention," I said, not looking away from the prisoner. "Possible internal injuries, broken arm, and—"
"He's a prisoner," Danny said. "They'll handle it."
"He has no pulse."
"What?"
"No pulse. No heartbeat. Until I touched him."
Danny went quiet. Then: "Mara, we need to go. Now."
I pulled my hand back slowly. The prisoner's heartbeat faded under my palm, growing fainter with each second of distance. By the time I'd moved a foot away, it was gone.
His eyes tracked me. Still gray. Still empty. But something else was there now. Panic, maybe. Or pleading.
"Please," he said. "Don't leave me with them."
Boots hit pavement outside. Voices, sharp and military. Not regular PD.
"Secure the area. Find the asset."
Asset. Not prisoner.
I looked back at the man in the corner. "What's your name?"
He hesitated. "Kade."
"Kade what?"
"Just Kade."
More voices outside, closer now. Danny grabbed my shoulder. "Mara. Now."
I let him pull me back. We cleared the transport just as the first officer reached the doors. Not a cop. Private security, heavy gear, weapons drawn.
The lead officer glanced at us. "You two treated anyone from this transport?"
"Two dead in front," Danny said quickly. "One wounded in back. Broken arm, possible concussion."
"And?"
"And what?"
"You touch him?"
I felt Danny's hand tighten on my shoulder. A warning.
"No," I lied. "Too dangerous. He was still restrained when we arrived."
The officer studied me for three long seconds. Then he nodded. "Clear out. This is a recovery operation now."
We walked back to the ambulance. I could feel eyes on my back the whole way. Danny didn't say anything until we were inside with the doors closed.
"What the hell was that?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"You're lying."
I looked at my wrist. Dark bruises were already forming where Kade had grabbed me. My hand still felt warm.
"He had no heartbeat," I said. "None. Until I touched him."
"That's not possible."
"I know."
Danny started the engine. Behind us, more security vehicles pulled up. A whole convoy. For one prisoner.
My radio chirped. Not the ambulance radio. My personal one, the encrypted channel I used for side calls. The clinic jobs. The ones that didn't go through dispatch.
I pulled it out. The screen showed a single line of text, sender unknown.
*Get away from that scene. They're about to classify you as a contamination risk.*
I stared at the message. "Danny, drive."
"What?"
"Drive. Now."
He didn't argue this time. The ambulance pulled away from the scene, lights off.
My radio chirped again.
*The prisoner's name is Kade Voss. He was built to hunt people. Whatever you did back there, you just became his off switch. They'll kill you both to keep that quiet.*
I looked back through the rear window. The security team was loading Kade into an armored vehicle. He was fighting them, three men struggling to hold him down.
Then his head turned. Even from a block away, even through tinted glass, I felt his eyes find mine.
My radio chirped one more time.
*Your sister found out about him six months ago. That's why she disappeared.*
The ambulance turned a corner and Kade was gone.
My hand was still warm.
And somewhere behind us, I heard sirens. A lot of them. Coming fast.
Danny heard them too. "Mara, what did you do?"
I looked at my radio. The last message was still on screen.
Then the ambulance radio crackled to life. Not the dispatcher. A different voice. Cold, professional.
"All units, Code Red. Paramedic vehicle Echo-Seven, license Alpha-Delta-Mike-two-four-six. Driver and passenger are to be detained for exposure protocol. Use of force is authorized."
Danny went pale. "That's us."
The sirens were getting closer.
I grabbed my kit. "Pull into the alley up ahead. Kill the lights."
"Mara—"
"Do it."
He did it.
The ambulance jerked into the narrow alley between two abandoned buildings. Danny killed the engine, the lights, everything. We sat in the dark, listening to sirens scream past on the main road.
My radio was silent now. Whoever had sent those messages was gone.
I looked at my wrist again. The bruises were darker. Finger-shaped. The kind of grip that should have shattered bone.
But it hadn't. He'd held back. Even when that sound started, even when he was tearing through metal, some part of him had held back.
Danny was breathing hard. "What exposure protocol? We didn't get exposed to anything."
"I don't think it's about exposure," I said.
The sirens were circling back. Searching.
My radio chirped one final time.
*They're tracking your vehicle. You have ninety seconds to run.*
I looked at Danny. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
I opened the door and stepped out into the alley.
Behind me, Danny hissed my name. I didn't turn around. If I turned around, I'd see the fear on his face and I'd lose my nerve.
The alley led deeper into the industrial district. Old warehouses, shipping containers, the parts of Neon Harbor where cameras didn't work and nobody asked questions.
I started walking.
Behind me, the sirens found the ambulance.
Ahead of me, the city swallowed me whole.
My hand was still warm. And somewhere out there, Kade Voss had no heartbeat at all.
Unless I touched him.
I pulled out my personal radio one more time. Sent a message to the unknown number.
*Who are you?*
The reply came back in five seconds.
*Someone who needs you alive. Your sister left something behind. Kade is the only one who knows where. And you're the only one who can keep him from killing everyone who asks.*
I stopped walking.
*What did my sister find?*
No reply.
I tried again.
*What did they do to Kade?*
Still nothing.
Then, after thirty seconds, one last message.
*The same thing they're going to do to the whole Lower Harbor if nobody stops them. Your sister tried. She's why they built Kade in the first place.*
The radio went dead.
I stood in the alley, alone, with sirens echoing off every wall and my hand still remembering the warmth of a heartbeat that shouldn't exist.
Somewhere in the city, they were hunting me.
Somewhere else, they were hunting Kade.
And my sister—the one who'd vanished six months ago, the one I'd been searching for every night after my shift ended, the one everyone said had just run off—had known about all of this.
I looked down at my bruised wrist.
Then I started running.