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The gun woke before I did.
Metal twisted under the skin of my right arm. Then the burn crawled from my elbow to my wrist.
I dropped the rag.
"Not tonight," I muttered.
The Kettle Black had finally emptied out. I was behind the bar, wiping the same patch of counter for the third time. My phone sat facedown beside the register.
Four hours without checking it. That was the rule.
No calls. No texts. No old names dragging me back to the life I'd buried three years ago.
The gun pulsed again.
Blue runes flashed beneath my sleeve.
"You're getting worse," I told my arm.
The magic vanished. The pain eased.
For three seconds.
Then someone kicked in the back door.
Wood cracked upstairs. Boots hit the steps.
I ducked behind the bar and grabbed the aluminum bat beside the ice machine. The first man cleared the last stair.
I swung.
He caught the bat with one hand.
"Hey, Crowe."
Marcus Rein stood there in his black jacket, gray hair buzzed short, his face set in that tired cop expression that meant he'd already decided how the night would end.
I yanked the bat back.
He let go.
"You broke my door."
"I'll pay for it."
"You won't."
"Probably not."
Marcus stepped around the bar and pulled out a stool. He sat like he'd been invited.
His eyes dropped to my right arm.
I tugged my sleeve lower.
"I'm out," I said. "You know that."
"You were out."
"I quit."
"You retired."
"Same thing when the job tries to kill you."
Marcus reached inside his jacket. He moved slowly. He knew what I kept under the bar, and he knew I'd use it.
He pulled out a thin manila folder and dropped it between us.
A red stripe marked the tab.
Active threat.
"Now you're back in," he said.
I didn't touch the folder.
"No."
"You haven't heard the problem."
"I don't need to. My answer's still no."
"Ivy."
He used my first name.
That killed the last bit of my patience.
"Don't do that."
"Two nights ago, a man was killed at L Street Station."
"Call the cops."
"Transit cops found him in pieces across three platforms."
My hand tightened around the edge of the counter.
"That's not my jurisdiction anymore."
"It is when the killer came out of the biolab we shut down three years ago."
The gun burned hotter.
Marcus opened the folder and slid a photo toward me.
"Look."
"No."
"You need to see it."
I stared at the photo anyway.
A morgue table. A ruined body. A black alloy tag pinned near the center of the chest.
GS-7.
My stomach dropped.
"That's impossible."
Marcus placed a second photo beside it.
Another victim.
Another tag.
GS-4.
Then a third.
GS-9.
"They're all dead," I said.
"Apparently, we missed some."
"We burned the lab."
"We burned the building."
"We burned everything inside it."
"We thought we did."
I shoved the photos back toward him.
"Those tags were coded to our DNA. Nobody could use them."
"Nobody?"
"We had them cut out after the shutdown."
My fingers brushed the old scar near my collarbone before I stopped them.
Marcus watched me.
"Someone's using our tags," I said.
"Or someone's using your people."
I looked up.
His face had gone flat.
"My people are dead."
"Then who's walking around with their tags?"
The runes under my skin twisted hard. The gun pulsed like it had heard Marcus.
Like it knew the answer.
I clenched my fist.
"I don't know."
"That's why you're coming with me."
"No, that's why you brought me a folder. There's a difference."
"Not tonight."
He pulled out one last photo.
This one showed a subway platform. Grainy black-and-white footage. Timestamp: 02:47 a.m.
A lone figure stood beneath the security camera, head lowered, arms hanging loose.
I stopped breathing.
Marcus tapped the image.
"Transit cams caught him twenty minutes ago at Union Station."
"Him?"
"The team thinks so."
"You brought me here to identify a shadow?"
"I brought you here because you know what he can do."
My eyes stayed on the screen-grab.
The figure's right hand hung slightly curled.
A habit.
One I knew too well.
"Who is it?"
Marcus slid the photo closer.
The camera had caught part of the man's profile. A scar cut along the jaw. His shoulders hunched in the same uneven way.
My throat closed.
"His tag says GS-2," Marcus said.
The bar seemed to tilt.
GS-2.
Zero.
I'd put a bullet in Zero's head three years ago. I'd checked the body myself before we torched the lab.
"That's not him."
"Then you won't mind confirming it."
"You want me to walk into a trap?"
"I want you to tell me whether the dead man you buried is walking through Union Station."
"And if it is him?"
Marcus stood.
His stool scraped across the floor.
"Then you tell me how to stop him."
"You mean kill him."
"If that's what it takes."
The gun flared beneath my sleeve.
My fingers twitched toward the weapon hidden under the counter.
Marcus noticed.
Of course he did.
"Don't make me drag you out," he said.
"You'd try?"
"I'd break your arm before I let you activate that thing in here."
The words landed harder than the threat should've.
He stepped closer. Close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his jacket. His voice dropped, rough and controlled.
"You know what happens if that gun wakes all the way up."
"I know what happens when I don't use it."
"People die."
"People died when I did use it."
For half a second, his eyes caught mine.
There it was. The old mission. The bodies. The things neither of us had said in three years.
Then Marcus blinked, and the moment snapped shut.
He pushed the folder against my chest.
"Two minutes. Car's outside."
"Go to hell."
"After you."
He turned and headed for the ruined back door.
I looked down at the photo.
Zero's scar.
Zero's posture.
Zero's tag.
The gun pulsed again, slow and steady.
It wanted to hunt.
The worst part?
So did I.
I grabbed my jacket and shoved the folder inside.
"Crowe," Marcus called from the doorway. "You coming?"
"If you touch my bar, I'll bury you under it."
"Good. You still sound alive."
I followed him upstairs.
The apartment door hung from one hinge. Cold air slipped through the broken frame and brushed my face.
I reached for the lock.
Then the gun jerked beneath my skin.
Hard.
A blue glow flashed through my sleeve.
From outside, Marcus shouted, "Ivy, get down!"
A shape moved behind him in the dark.
The figure raised one hand.
And Marcus turned toward—