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"Show me your hands." Cade's voice cut through the dark, low and sharp.
I froze halfway through the doorway. "You first."
"Not how this works." He stepped out from behind the busted vending machine, one hand loose at his side, the other holding something I couldn't see. "You ran three blocks. You're breathing hard. You want something."
"I want answers." I kept my back to the wall, eyes on his shoulders. "You said you know every way I die. Start talking."
"Not here."
"Then where?" I pushed off the wall, moved two steps closer. "Because those guys with the drones are about ten minutes behind me, and I'm done playing trust-the-fixer."
His jaw tightened. "You think I set that up?"
"I think you knew they were coming." My voice came out harder than I meant. "I think you've been three steps ahead this whole time, and I'm the only one still pretending this is new."
Cade didn't move, but something shifted in his eyes. Something that looked like he'd heard this before. "You want the truth?"
"I want to know why my name is on that file." I pulled the phone from my jacket, held it up. The screen glowed faint blue between us. "I want to know why you look at me like you're counting down."
He exhaled slow, like he was deciding how much I could handle. "Because you die in six minutes. Every time."
"Liar."
"Run four, you took a round through the left lung. Run five, they caught you at the fire escape and put you down before I got there. Run six—"
"Stop." My hand tightened on the phone. "Just stop."
"You asked."
"I asked why my name is on the file." I took another step. Close enough now to see the edge of his collar, the way his pulse beat steady in his throat. "I didn't ask for your nightmare highlight reel."
Cade's mouth curved, but it wasn't a smile. "You think this is my nightmare?"
"I think you're the only one who remembers."
"Yeah." His voice dropped. "Lucky me."
For a second we just stood there, too close, breathing the same stale air. Then the phone buzzed in my hand.
"Mara." Nix's voice came through thin and crackling. "Company inbound. Ninety seconds."
"Where?"
"North stairwell. Two bodies, both armed. They're not here to talk."
Cade moved before I did, hand closing around my wrist. "This way."
"Let go—"
"You want to live through the next two minutes?" He pulled me toward the back exit, not rough but not asking either. "Then move."
I moved.
We hit the alley at a dead run. Cade stayed half a step ahead, one hand still locked around my wrist, the other pulling a compact piece from inside his coat. I didn't ask where he got it. Didn't ask why he moved like he'd mapped every corner.
"Left," he said.
I went left.
The alley opened into a loading dock, empty except for a rusted-out delivery truck and a stack of pallets going soft in the rain. Cade kicked the truck's back door open, shoved me inside.
"Stay down."
"What are you—"
"I said stay down." He crouched beside the door, eyes on the alley mouth. "They'll sweep the dock in thirty seconds. If you move, they see you. If they see you, you're dead."
"And you?"
"I'm the guy who's done this six times." He didn't look at me. "Trust me or don't. Your call."
I stayed down.
Footsteps echoed off brick, slow and careful. Two sets. Cade's hand tightened on the gun, and I saw the way his breathing slowed, the way his whole body went still.
"Clear left," someone called.
"Check the truck."
Cade's eyes flicked to mine. He mouthed one word: "Ready?"
I wasn't. But I nodded anyway.
The first guy reached the truck door. Cade moved like something uncoiling, fast and silent, and suddenly the guy was on the ground and Cade had his gun.
"Don't," Cade said, voice flat.
The second guy raised his weapon. Cade fired once, clean, and the man went down.
Then the world snapped sideways.
Not a reset. Something else. A lurch, like the ground remembered it was supposed to be six inches lower. Cade staggered, caught himself on the truck frame.
"What the hell was that?" I pulled myself up, ears ringing.
"That," Nix said from the phone, "was the loop trying to correct."
"Correct what?"
"You're not supposed to survive this part."
Cade straightened, jaw tight. Blood spread dark across his left side, soaking through his shirt. I hadn't seen him get hit.
"You're shot."
"I know." He pressed one hand to the wound, kept the gun up with the other. "Doesn't matter."
"The hell it doesn't—"
"Mara." His voice went rough. "We've got about four minutes before the next wave, and maybe two before I'm no good to you. So listen."
I listened.
"The file isn't random." He leaned against the truck, breathing careful. "Your name's on it because you're the anchor. The whole loop is built around you."
"That doesn't make sense. I didn't build this—"
"You didn't have to." He looked at me then, really looked, and I saw something break open behind his eyes. "They built it for you. Before you were born."
The phone buzzed. Once, sharp.
"Cade," Nix said, quieter now. "You need to show her."
"Not yet."
"She's going to see it anyway."
"I said not yet."
"Show me what?" I reached for the phone, but Cade's hand shot out, caught my wrist again. His palm was hot, slick with blood.
"Don't."
"Let go."
"Mara—"
"Let. Go."
He did. His hand dropped, and I saw the way his fingers shook, just a little.
I unlocked the phone. The file was already open, a video player paused on the first frame. I pressed play.
The footage was old, grainy, shot from a hospital security cam. A woman in a bed, pale and exhausted. A man beside her, younger than he should be, holding something small and red and screaming.
A baby.
The timestamp read twenty-six years ago. My birthday.
"Keep watching," Cade said.
The man in the video turned toward the camera. I knew his face before the footage sharpened. Older now, harder, but the same.
Cade.
The baby stopped crying. The woman reached for her, and the man—Cade, twenty-six years younger—leaned down and whispered something I couldn't hear.
Then the screen flashed white.
One line of text burned across the frame:
ANCHOR RECOVERED. SEQUENCE INITIALIZED.
I looked up. Cade was still pressed against the truck, blood pooling under his boots, his eyes locked on mine.
"You were there," I said.
"Yeah."
"You knew me."
"Yeah."
"Before all this."
He didn't answer. Just held my gaze, steady and wrecked, while the phone screen flickered and went dark.
Then the alley lit up red and blue, and I heard sirens closing in.
"Mara," Nix said, urgent now. "You need to run."
Cade pushed off the truck, swayed once, and caught himself. "Go."
"Not without—"
"Go."
I didn't move. Couldn't. Not with his blood on my hands and that video still burning behind my eyes.
"Tell me the truth," I said. "All of it."
Cade's mouth curved, bitter and small. "I've been trying to save you for twenty-six years. That true enough?"
The sirens screamed closer.
The phone buzzed once more, and the screen flashed bright.
A new image loaded. Another photo, older than the first.
A little girl, maybe three years old, sitting on a man's shoulders. She was laughing. He wasn't.
The man was Cade.
The girl was me.
"Mara," he said, and his voice finally cracked. "Run."
I ran.
But the image stayed burned in my head, sharp and impossible, while the world started counting down again and Cade's blood dried cold on my wrist.