I may have lost an entire chapter of my life three years ago, but pieces of the earlier ones still live in me. Soft, stubborn fragments that refused to fade.
My mother's voice, lilting and warm when she tried to comfort me after a nightmare. My father's hand, steady and sure, guiding me down the garden paths behind our apartment in New York. The distant hum of the city slipping through my bedroom window like a lullaby.
I still remember, clear as day, when I fell sick that night at Grandpa's estate, waiting for my parents to return from a party I couldn't attend. I remember the morning after, when he came up to my room and told me everything had changed. That I hadn't just lost my parents. But also the life I used to know. The future I could've had, with them in it.
And through all of it, through every fracture and every grief, I never broke.
Never panicked. Not even once.
I was the quiet child who didn't cry. The composed adolescent who didn't crumble. The trained soldier who moved like a blade. Controlled and precise. The way I was raised.
Which is why the feeling that ripped through me now was so horribly foreign.
"Lara?" he breathed.
The name hit me harder than the cold air in that cramped restroom stall. Spoken with a shock so raw, it felt intimate. As if I was the one deceiving him. As if he knew me.
Something inside me slipped, broke loose from the discipline I've lived in all my life.
My finger moved before I realized, pulling the trigger.
The gunshot cracked through the stall, and he jerked backward. His brows furrowed in confusion, those green eyes looking down at my bullet punching straight into his chest, landing exactly where I knew it would.
I didn't bother waiting to see him fall. I simply shoved the stall door hard, slipping past him before his knees could even buckle. He was too stunned to stop me.
"Wait—" he bit out.
But I kept on moving. My boots splashing through the puddle as I sprinted out of the restroom, lungs burning, heart thundering so loud it drowned out every thought except run.
I burst out of the old building and into another damp, echoing tunnel behind it. Blackfriars' cold stone swallowing me whole once more. The night air slapping me across the face. But I didn't slow. I didn't even look back.
"East entrance, go!"
"Spread out! She's close!"
I tightened my grip on my bag and ducked into the shadows, weaving between pillars slick with condensation. Footsteps thundered behind me. There were multiple of them, and they were all closing in fast.
For fuck's sake, what the fuck are they on?
A bullet ricocheted off the wall just inches from my head. I jerked sideways, breath tearing out of me in a dry gasp. Another shot. Then another. Sparks spit off the metal railings.
They weren't trying to kill me. They were trying to kidnap me.
I vaulted over a low barrier, my boots slamming into the ground as I tore down the narrowing passage. The tunnel stretching ahead like a throat I was about to be swallowed by.
Behind me, more shouting. More boots. The hunt tightening around me.
I can't outrun them all.
The helplessness hid me mid-stride. Sudden and wrong. The echo of footsteps behind me, the suppressed gunfire, the cold air burning my throat. Every sound, every vibration in this tunnel felt like a replay something I've lived before.
My chest tightened fast. Too fast.
Panic crawled up my spine once more, unfamiliar and vicious. This...this sensation of being hunted struck a place in me, I didn't even know existed. My lungs locked. Each breath I took came shallow, jagged. The air felt thinner the more I tried to pull it in.
I can't help it anymore. I pulled my mask out, dumping it somewhere behind me, my lungs taking a sharp intake of the night air. But it was still not working.
Still, I forced my legs to keep on moving, even when my vision started to swim. The tunnel wavered. The lights smearing into long, dizzy streaks. My heart hammered so hard, I could barely hear anything else.
Another flash. Running. Someone grabbing my arm. A scream, gone before I could grasp it. It was probably mine. But the dizziness surged again. My stride faltered.
Then my knees gave out.
I hit the ground hard, palms scraping the concrete, breath tearing out of me in broken gasps. The world kept tilting, narrowing, dimming. I tried to push myself up, but my limbs felt heavy. Numb. Unresponsive. Footsteps shouted after me, muffled and distant. As if they were coming from the other end of a long tunnel.
My vision tunneled further, the edges washing into black.
But just before I succumbed to the darkness, a pair of black boots stopped in front of me. Steady and silent. Too close.
Only then did I slip into the dark.
There were so many men. They all rushed in. I was outnumbered.
"She's here!" he barked. A voice I faintly recognize.
But I was already distracted, as I scrambled back, only for a pair of arms closing in around me from behind, yanking me upright.
My grip tightened on my gun as I slammed my elbows into his ribs, hard.
He grunted, loosening for half a second. Long enough for me to twist and kick his shin. Then I fired two more shot at the man, closing in from my left.
I ran.
My legs carrying me towards the bedroom, where my phone was charging. I have to call him. I have to tell him to come back. Shots still cracking behind me, splintering the doorframe as I ran through the hallway.
I fired blindly over my shoulder. Not stopping. I didn't think. I just moved.
When my hands finally closed in on the bedroom door, a hand fisted my hair and yanked.
A sharp cry tearing out of my throat, my head snapping back. Pain exploded through my scalp, down my spine. Prompting for my finger to jerk on the trigger, causing a stray bullet to tear through the wall.
"Got her!"
I swung my arm back, trying to aim. I tried to get the barrel high enough, but another hand clamped around my wrist, twisting it and slamming it into the floor. My vision sparked.
I didn't think I've been in this much pain.
Still, I twisted and clawed. Trying to kick the man off the floor, off of me. Anything to break out of his hold. Anything.
Then another crashed into me from the side, sending the both of us down the stairs.
My back hit the hardwood floor first, then my head.