He slipped into the alley like a blade drawn from shadow, swift enough that none of them registered the shift in the air. The metal rod came down hard on the first man's forearm—bone cracked, a sharp, ugly sound swallowed by the narrow walls. The second barely turned before the rod slammed into his ribs, knocking the breath clean out of him. The third took it across the back of the knee and went down with a curse, scrambling uselessly on the grime-slick ground.
It was over in seconds.
Askai moved with the precision his reputation had once been built on—economical, merciless and swift. The kind of speed one earned only by surviving too many nights like this.
But no one knew that now.
The remaining men didn't try to be brave. They scattered, retreating into the dark, dragging their wounded with them. One of them paused at the mouth of the alley, just long enough to look back.
Their eyes met.
Recognition didn't spark—only something colder. A will to retaliate.
Askai let him go.
He turned to the man in uniform instead. The boy was shaking, shock locking his limbs in place. Up close, he looked even younger, maybe Jordan's age—barely hardened, barely trained, thrown into something far larger than himself.
"Up," Askai said quietly.
He hauled him to his feet and half-carried, half-dragged him toward the brighter end of the alley, where patrol lights flickered faintly in the distance. He set him down there, steadying him only long enough to be sure he wouldn't collapse.
"My colleagues—" the boy started, breath hitching. "They'll keep you safe. As a favor. I swear—"
Askai was already turning away.
The boy was too young to understand what kind of favors were being traded tonight. Too young to see that protection always came with invisible hooks. He lacked the experience, his colleagues did not.
As Askai melted back into the dark, a familiar bitterness settled in his chest. He wondered why the East had flooded Middle Nolan with numbers like this—raw, inexperienced bodies mixed in with seasoned units. They had always saved their battle-hardened ones for the West. Men who didn't hesitate. Men who didn't know how to stop.
Not long after, Askai found a motel that didn't ask questions. He paid in cash, kept his head down, and locked the door behind him with a sense of finality that felt heavier than it should have.
The first thing he did was turn on the news.
Things were bad. Worse than Brendon had let on.
He placed the metal rod by the side of the bed, within easy reach. Meagre, but solid. Something was better than nothing. He hadn't even had time to steal a gun from Brendon's place.
Luck, it seemed, wasn't interested in him anymore.
The days blurred.
A month passed without him stepping outside.
The television stayed on, its low murmur filling the room as footage rolled endlessly—burning vehicles, shuttered streets, bodies blurred out just enough to pretend at mercy. At first, the gangs hadn't fractured the way everyone expected. There was no blind chaos, no random violence.
Instead, it was coordinated.
Too coordinated.
Authorities began to whisper about infiltration—about unseen hands guiding movements, turning gangs into pieces on a board. What was meant to be a swift operation stretched into something slow and ugly.
Then, sometime around the third week, it began to unravel.
Alliances cracked. Orders contradicted each other. Gangs turned inward, suspicion eating them alive. Askai watched it happen with a hollow sense of déjà vu.
He'd seen this before.
The docks. Years ago. Different names. Same pattern.
By the end of the month, the authorities finally gained the upper hand.
Middle Nolan was quieter—but not at all safer.
Askai sat on the edge of the bed, the metal rod resting across his palm as his eyes stayed fixed on the muted newsfeed flickering across the screen.
This wasn't over. Not even close.
But he couldn't stay holed up forever either. Brendon had been checking on him every day, hovering like Askai was a sitting duck in a pond full of crocodiles—well-meaning, anxious, and utterly unable to help from across the divide.
Apparently, Vance and Brendon were suffering from the same delusion.
The thought tugged a reluctant smile out of him, brief and unwelcome - a moment of weakness. He shook his head as if to dislodge it, then stood and went looking for his wallet and the room keys.
There were supplies he needed—basic things—and more importantly, he needed to hear what the streets were saying. News channels told only one side of the story. The alleys always told the rest.
The moment he stepped outside, the smile vanished and he immediately regretted his decision.
Uniforms were everywhere.
Every corner. Every signal. Every stretch of road. Their eyes tracked passersby with practiced suspicion, hands never far from weapons. Middle Nolan had become a pressure cooker, and the lid was being screwed on tight.
It was like Askai was missing something- a key piece to the whole puzzle. This is not how East conducted their raids. Stationing these many cops at every intersection hinted at their intention to avoid collateral damage but that was something they never bothered about West of their own frontiers.
He needed to be more cautious, at least until he had figured out whatever in the bloody hell had been going down.
Askai veered toward the back of the motel and slipped into a narrow alley, barely wide enough for a single person to pass through without brushing brick on both sides. He kept his head down, shoulders drawn in, becoming just another shadow trying not to be seen.
The first store he found was small and poorly lit, shelves crowded with mismatched goods. He stepped inside without lifting his gaze. In times like these, anonymity was currency. No one looked clean. No one looked safe. Everyone was hiding—from the gangs, from the authorities, from each other.
He had just started picking up what he needed when the air in the room shifted. He suddenly felt several eyes on him.
Askai froze.