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The hitman's blood pooled under my boots. He was still grinning, even with half his chest torn open.
"Sokolov's bringing the recovery protocol tonight," he'd said. Then he'd laughed like it was the funniest joke he'd ever heard.
Now the building was on fire.
I could hear the crackle of flames eating through the second floor. Smoke poured down the stairwell. Lea was already at the side exit, one hand on the door, the other clutching her med kit. She looked back at me.
"Mark. We need to move."
I crouched next to the hitman. His eyes were half-closed. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth. He wasn't grinning anymore.
"What's the recovery protocol?" I asked.
He coughed. More blood. "You really don't know, do you?"
"Tell me."
He tried to laugh again, but it came out wet and broken. "They don't collect bodies, Weston. They collect the reset."
My hand went to my wrist. The seven was still there, faint and warm under the dried blood. I'd scrubbed it twice today. It always came back.
"What does that mean?"
His hand twitched. He was reaching for something in his jacket. I grabbed his wrist and yanked it out. A data key. Small, black, polymer casing. The kind that burned if you tried to clone it.
"Sokolov knows," the hitman whispered. "He's known since Prague. You think you're hunting him? He's been watching you die."
The smoke was getting thicker. Lea shouted my name from the door.
I pulled the key free and shoved it in my pocket. The hitman's hand dropped. His eyes rolled back.
"Mark!" Lea's voice cracked. "Now!"
I ran.
The exit door slammed open and we hit the alley. Cold air, wet pavement, the smell of burning plastic and old trash. I could hear sirens two blocks over. Lea was already moving, keeping low, heading for the service lane we'd scoped yesterday.
Yesterday for her. Four loops ago for me.
She stopped at the corner and pressed her back against the wall. Her breath came fast. She looked at me, then at the building.
"They're going to find three bodies in there," she said. "Two of them were civilians."
"They were already dead when we got there."
"That's not the point."
"Then what is?"
She stepped closer. Her eyes locked on mine. "The point is you knew. You knew exactly where to go, which door, which floor. You didn't even check the layout. You just walked in like you'd done it before."
I didn't say anything.
"So either you've been holding out on me," she continued, "or something else is going on."
The sirens were getting louder. I could see the flicker of red and blue reflecting off the wet brick.
"We need to move," I said.
She didn't budge. "You're bleeding."
I looked down. My shirt was soaked on the left side. The hitman had clipped me before I'd put him down. Shallow, but long. I'd barely felt it in the moment.
"I'm fine."
"You're not." She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the service lane. There was a loading dock halfway down, metal stairs leading up to a rust-streaked door. She pushed me toward it.
"Lea—"
"Sit."
I sat.
She dropped her kit on the steps and unzipped it. The streetlight above us buzzed and flickered. She pulled out gauze, a bottle of saline, a penlight. Her hands moved fast, efficient. She'd done this a hundred times.
She lifted my shirt. The cut ran from my ribs to just under my armpit. Not deep, but it was still bleeding.
"Hold still."
She poured saline over it. I hissed through my teeth. She didn't apologize. She pressed gauze against the wound and held it there, her other hand braced on my shoulder.
That's when she saw it.
The number.
Seven. Faint, glowing, just under the smear of blood on my forearm.
Her hand froze. Her eyes locked on it.
"What is that?"
I pulled my arm back. "Nothing."
"That's not nothing." She grabbed my wrist and pulled it back into the light. The glow was fading, but it was still there. "Mark. What the hell is that?"
I didn't answer.
She let go and sat back on her heels. Her face was unreadable. "How long?"
"How long what?"
"How long have you been resetting?"
The word hit me like a slap. I stared at her. She stared back.
"I'm not stupid," she said quietly. "I've seen you die twice. Both times, you came back. Different day, same you. You remember things that haven't happened yet. You know where people are going to be before they get there. And now you've got that thing on your wrist."
I opened my mouth. Closed it. No good answer.
She stood up and wiped her hands on her jeans. "You're not the only one who's seen weird shit, Mark. I just didn't think it was real until now."
"It's real," I said.
"How many?"
"How many what?"
"How many times have you done this? How many loops?"
I looked at the number on my wrist. "Enough."
She crossed her arms. "And the seven?"
"That's how many I've got left."
She didn't say anything for a long time. The sirens had stopped. The street was quiet except for the hum of the streetlight and the distant rumble of traffic.
Finally, she picked up her kit and slung it over her shoulder. "We need to get off the street."
"Where?"
"My place. It's clean. No one knows about it."
I stood up. The cut pulled, but the bleeding had stopped. "Sokolov knows."
"Then we'll move again after."
She started walking. I followed.
We didn't talk the rest of the way. She led me through back alleys and service lanes, cutting through a shuttered market and a parking garage that smelled like piss and motor oil. Her place was a fourth-floor walk-up in a building that should've been condemned ten years ago. The lock was new, though. So was the reinforced door frame.
She let us in and locked the door behind us. The apartment was small. One room, a kitchenette, a bathroom with a cracked mirror. There was a futon against the wall, a folding table, a duffel bag in the corner. No personal effects. No photos. Nothing that couldn't be packed in thirty seconds.
She tossed her kit on the table and pulled out her phone. "I'm texting Ava."
"About what?"
"The key."
I pulled it out of my pocket. The casing was warm. There was a hairline crack along one edge. I held it up to the light. The polymer was starting to warp.
"It's burnt," I said.
Lea looked over. "How bad?"
"Bad. We've got maybe six hours before it's junk."
She typed something into her phone and hit send. A few seconds later, it buzzed.
She read the screen. Her face went pale.
"What?"
She turned the phone toward me.
The message was short.
*That key opens a door under the city morgue.*