2:10 AM – Safehouse 3, Lower Westside
The cold hum of fluorescent lights buzzed above them.
Kairo sat on the edge of the cot, shirt off, cleaning the gash across his side — a gift from barbed wire during his escape. Alicia hovered nearby, holding a medkit but not saying a word.
"You can sit," he said without looking at her. "I'm not going to bleed out."
She didn't move.
Finally, she spoke.
"So what happens now?"
Kairo winced as he dabbed antiseptic on the cut. "Now?" He glanced up at her, eyes sharp. "Now I'm a loose end."
"You mean they're coming after you?"
He didn't answer. He didn't need to.
Alicia sat down on the cot opposite him. "You said they trained you since you were twelve. Who are they?"
Kairo finished patching the wound and sat back, staring at the cracked ceiling.
"They call themselves The Organization. Real original, right? They recruit kids — smart ones, broken ones, invisible ones. They turn us into weapons. No ties. No questions. Just missions. Clean kills."
Alicia looked at him in disbelief.
"And you… went along with it?"
"At first." He paused. "Then I got good at it. Too good."
She swallowed hard, eyes watering — not from fear, but from the painful realization that the boy she'd loved for years had been living a double life.
"And what about me, Kairo? Was I just… cover?"
He looked at her then. For once, no walls, no lies.
"No. You're the only real thing I've got."
She didn't respond. Just sat there, eyes locked with his, trying to piece together the image of the boy she knew with the weapon he'd become.
3:03 AM – Streets of Lower Westside
Kairo moved through the shadows, Alicia close behind, hood pulled low.
They couldn't stay at the safehouse. Too easy to trace.
He needed to disappear. But first, he needed to know how deep the betrayal went.
That meant finding the one person who knew how the Organization worked and survived walking away from it:
Silas Venn.
Codename: Echo.
3:47 AM – Abandoned Church, East Sector
The stained glass windows were shattered. Rats scurried across the floor. The altar was covered in dust and cigarette butts.
This was where Kairo found him — sitting in the front pew, humming to himself and sharpening a knife.
Silas Venn looked up, grinning beneath a patchy beard.
"Well, look who finally got tired of being the golden boy."
Kairo stepped into the light.
"Nice place you've got."
"It's rent-controlled," Silas said dryly, standing. He was in his late 30s now, scruffy and unshaved, but his eyes were still sharp — too sharp for a dead man.
"I need answers," Kairo said.
"Yeah. I figured. You don't drop by after midnight for confession."
Silas walked over, knife still in hand, and studied Kairo.
"They put a black mark on you, didn't they?"
Kairo nodded. "Crowe set me up. Sent me into a fake op. Used a corpse to bait me."
Silas snorted. "Classic. Clean way to flip the table — no body, no mess, just a quiet little purge."
"I need to know everything," Kairo said. "Protocols. Fallback teams. How they'll come after me."
"You want to survive?" Silas asked.
"I want to burn them down."
Silas paused. Then — for the first time in years — he smiled for real.
"Then you're gonna need more than luck. You're gonna need an army."
Meanwhile – Organization HQ, Unknown Location
Crowe stood before a group of black-clad operatives.
"All eyes on this man." He pressed a button on the remote.
Kairo's face flickered onto the screen. Next to it: a red mark. Target status: Active Fugitive.
"He's smart. Trained. Cold when he needs to be. But he has a weakness now."
Crowe clicked to the next image.
Alicia.
"She goes with him wherever he runs. Capture if possible. Kill if necessary."
He turned to the operatives.
"I want him dead by the end of the week."
5:12 AM – Abandoned Church
Kairo loaded a fresh clip into his pistol. Silas tossed him an unregistered phone and a flash drive.
"That's your first breadcrumb," Silas said. "Names. Targets. Places the Organization doesn't want exposed."
Kairo caught it. "This is how we start?"
"No," Silas said, lighting a cigarette. "This is how we fight back."
Outside, the sun began to rise — but for Kairo Vale, the night was just beginning.