"Drop the pen, Maya. Or I'll make sure you never hold one again."
Cold steel pressed into the base of my skull. I froze. The ink from my fountain pen was still wet on the forged transit pass. One twitch, and I’d smudge the seal. One wrong move, and I’d have a hole in my head.
"You're late, Nox," I said. My voice was steady, even if my adrenaline was screaming. "And you're ruining a very expensive piece of parchment."
"The price just went up," Nox hissed. He smelled like cheap nicotine and stale sweat. He leaned in, the gun digging deeper into my skin. "Sector 4 guards are sniffing around. You didn't tell me the heat was this high."
"I told you the route was clean," I snapped.
I slowly set the pen down. My fingers brushed the edge of the desk, inches from the spring-loaded blade I'd rigged under the mahogany. "You're the one who brought a tail. Who followed you?"
"Nobody followed me!" Nox barked. "Just pay the premium and give me the papers."
I didn't move. I looked at the pass. Perfect. The holographic seal was a masterpiece of fraud. It would get any high-value target through the first checkpoint without a second glance.
But Nox was shaking. That was the problem.
"You're twitching, Nox. You're gonna pull the trigger by accident," I whispered. "Then you'll have no papers and a very dead forger. Bad for business, right?"
He grunted, grip tightening. "Just give me the damn—"
CRASH.
The front door didn't just open; it exploded. Glass rained down. A silhouette blurred through the debris, moving faster than any human I'd ever seen.
Before Nox could even turn, a hand clamped over his mouth. A heavy boot slammed into the back of his knee.
Nox hit the floor with a muffled scream. The gun skittered across the boards, spinning toward my boots.
I dove for it. My fingers closed around the grip just as a second figure stepped into the dim light.
Tall. Charcoal coat. Eyes too sharp, too focused—like he was reading the air around me. He didn't look like a soldier, but he moved like a predator that had already won.
"Stay down," the stranger said. His voice was a low, grating rumble. He wasn't looking at Nox. He was looking at me.
I leveled the gun at his chest. "Who the hell are you? How did you get past the perimeter?"
He didn't flinch. He didn't even raise his hands. "The perimeter is a joke, Maya. Upgrade your sensors."
I stiffened. "I don't know you."
"You don't. But I know you. And I know what's hiding in that floor safe." He took a step forward.
I squeezed the trigger guard, my finger trembling. "Step back. Now."
"You're shaking," he noted.
He was closer now. I could feel the heat radiating off him—a strange, humming energy that made the hair on my arms stand up. "Is it fear? Or are you just excited to see someone who actually knows the truth?"
"I don't care about the truth," I spat. "I care about my head staying attached to my neck. Give me one reason not to put a bullet in your lung."
He stopped. Barely two feet away. I could see a jagged scar running through his left eyebrow. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper that sent a chill straight down my spine.
"Siren."
I stopped breathing. The world tilted. The gun in my hand suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
"What did you say?" I whispered.
"Siren," he repeated. "That was her callsign. The one she told you to never speak aloud. The one she used when the lab went dark ten years ago."
I lunged. I didn't think. I swung the butt of the gun toward his temple, but he caught my wrist in mid-air.
His grip was a vice. Iron fingers locking around my skin. He jerked me forward, slamming me against the wall. The impact knocked the wind out of me. I was pinned, trapped by his dark gaze.
"Who are you?" I gasped, struggling. "Who told you that name?"
"Someone who didn't let her die in vain," he said.
He didn't let go. His thumb pressed firmly against the pulse point in my wrist. I could feel my heart hammering against his skin. The proximity was suffocating. Ozone and old leather.
"You've been forging papers for ten years, Maya. Playing hide and seek with the feds. You think you're surviving? You're just waiting in a cage."
I spat in his face. "Get off me, you freak."
He didn't blink. He didn't even wipe it away. Instead, he leaned closer, his breath warm against my ear. "The cage is opening. The federal lab—the one they told you was a crater—it's still running. And your mother's legacy is sitting there, waiting for a blood match."
I stopped fighting. My muscles went slack. "My mother is dead. I saw the wreckage."
"Reports are just another kind of forgery, Maya. You of all people should know that."
He released my wrist but didn't move away. He stayed in my space, dominating the room. "I have the files. I have the meds you've been trying to synthesize for your sister. And I have the coordinates."
I looked at him. Really looked at him. There was a kind of grief in his eyes that mirrored my own, wrapped in lethal competence.
"Why me?" I asked. "Why now?"
"Because I'm the only one who can get you through the checkpoints, and you're the only one who can open the door." He glanced at Nox, who was groaning on the floor. "And because we're running out of time."
I looked at the gun on the floor, then back at him. I had the skills, but he held the key to a ghost.
"I don't trust you," I said, stepping away from the wall. "I don't trust anyone who knows that name."
"Good. Trust is for people who aren't being hunted." He reached into his coat and pulled out a small, encrypted data drive. "This is the proof. But you won't get to see it unless we move. Now."
"Move where?"
"To the border. Three checkpoints. Three chances to get killed. But at the end of it..."
He paused, his eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made me forget how to breathe.
"Your mother is alive," he said. "And you have exactly three days to reach her before the protocol wipes the lab clean."