Rook led me into the alley with the confidence of someone who knew exactly where he was taking me. My boots slapped wet concrete, but instinct whispered: wrong turn, wrong street, wrong friend.
Click… drip… thud…
A shadow moved too precisely, too patiently. A gun barrel gleamed under a flickering streetlight. My chest tightened. Rook wasn't just leading me he was showing them the path.
No time to process. I dove behind a dumpster, heart hammering in sync with the rain. Every pattern I had studied the puddles, the crates, the fire escape suddenly became lifelines instead of curiosities.
Scrape… clatter… buzz…
I pushed myself along the alley, sliding past barrels, catching every reflection, every shadow, every hint that the city was watching. Each breath was a calculation. Each step could be the one that ended badly.
Rook's voice floated from somewhere behind me, calm, almost amused. "You notice patterns. You think you can outthink them." He didn't ask. He didn't warn. He just watched me run. My stomach turned.
I stopped, pressed against a wall, listening. Boots pounding closer. The betrayal was sharp, immediate, like a knife pressing against ribs. Not the usual city cruelty, not the Syndicate's slow, meticulous planning but personal.
Click… hum… drip…
I made a decision. Observation over hesitation. Improvisation over trust. I vaulted over crates, twisted down a narrow passage, letting the environment dictate the rhythm. Each movement precise, calculated, because hesitation meant capture.
Clatter… thud… splash…
The rain had slowed, leaving slick puddles that reflected my pursuers' silhouettes. I glanced back. Rook was gone too far, too detached. He hadn't saved me. He'd delivered me. And the realization cut deeper than the cold.
By the time I reached a side street, lungs burning, arms slick with rainwater, I realized the ledger wasn't safe either. If Rook could betray me, anyone could. Information, patterns, survival they all depended on what people chose to show, not what I could see.
Click… drip… hum…
I pressed against the wall, letting the city swallow my figure. Silence, save for the distant hum of neon and the faintest splash of a puddle. My mind raced, connecting dots, forming escape routes, rehearsing contingencies. Trust was a liability. Observation was armor. Survival was everything else.
I exhaled slowly. No sarcasm, no jokes. Just awareness. The betrayal had shifted the rules. Every alley, every shadow, every sound became a variable in a game I hadn't chosen to play but one I could not lose.
Click… hum… drip…
Rook might have smiled somewhere in the shadows. But I wouldn't. Not yet. Not while the city still had secrets I could use. And secrets… would keep me alive.