"Pack him up, then," the man muttered at last, irritation creeping into his voice as if fear offended him. "I'll get in touch with Supac. He can decide the bastard's fate."
He turned and walked away, already done with Askai.
His men moved in. Rough hands forced Askai's arms behind his back, rope biting into his wrists. He didn't resist. Leonard spared him a single glance. There was something heavy in it. Regret, maybe. Or recognition. Then he followed the bald man down the alley, boots echoing softly until the sound disappeared.
Moments later, Askai found himself dumped into a dingy cell.
Stone walls. Damp air. A single narrow window high above, just wide enough to let in a blade of light that never quite touched the floor.
Too much, after the motel.
At least there he'd had a bed. A lock. A door he'd chosen to close.
Too much for feeling suffocated in there.
Askai leaned back against the wall and let out a slow breath. A humorless smile tugged at his lips.
That was his life. It never got better—just creatively worse.
It was cursed from the beginning.
He'd found a caring soul once in Marlie. But then she died - died young. Too young to ever see what the world would turn him into.
He'd grown up half-feral after that, with Jordan clinging to him like an anchor. Finally they'd found a home. A real one. And the fever had taken it apart brick by brick.
He'd had a half-decent job running errands for Moraine—but then he was declared a terrorist overnight. He was stripped bare in the Eastern raids. Not just of status or safety, but of whatever fragile humanity he'd still carried. They'd won, yes—but Askai had lost his trust. His hope.
Moraine had lost more.
And when they'd finally begun to rebuild—trust, loyalty, something dangerously close to family—Tommie happened.
So Askai ran.
East had been isolation wrapped in illusion. Three years of quiet, of pretending. He'd finally let himself open up to one man.
And then that man had turned out to be his greatest enemy. Someone who would happily spill his blood the moment the illusions cracked.
Every step Askai took to save himself only tightened the net, as if he was destined to doom. At some point, he had accepted the harsh truth: the only way he ever survived was by swimming against the current. And even that only delayed the drowning.
A door slammed somewhere nearby and voices drifted through the thin walls.
"Megalo's gone nuts," one man spat, rage vibrating through his words.
A chair scraped. Another voice hissed back, low and urgent. "Keep your fucking voice down, Gail."
"Forget my voice, Bolly" Gail snapped, lowering it anyway. "My head's gonna end up near my feet if this keeps up. That mad bastard's making deals with the East—taking heads off for them—and selling information to the West at the same time. How long before they find out?"
"Watch your tongue," the other man—Bolly—warned. "Megalo'll slit your throat before either side gets the chance. Walls are thin—"
The words cut off. A door creaked open nearby and heavy footsteps followed.
They stopped outside Askai's cell, then the door swung open.
Leonard stood there.
He looked sharper up close. Colder.
Smarter than the idiots gossiping through the walls, his eyes flicked once toward the adjacent cell. With a subtle tilt of his head, Askai heard hurried footsteps retreating beyond the wall.
Leonard shut the door behind him.
For a moment, the two of them just looked at each other—past and present colliding in the narrow space.
"Still alive," Leonard said finally.
Askai exhaled, slow and tired. "Unfortunately."
Leonard's jaw tightened.
Askai raised a brow, bracing himself for the inevitable lecture—for disappearing, for vanishing off the map like a coward or a corpse.
Leonard disappointed him.
He scoffed instead. "You've got a hell of a lot of nerve, Kai. If you weren't already looking half-dead," he said, tossing a wad of gauze at him, "I'd have killed you myself."
Askai exhaled and caught it, pressing the gauze to the back of his head. It came away damp almost instantly. No wonder the room kept tilting like a bad memory.
"If I stay like this much longer, I will be dead," he muttered. "I know it's hard to explain—"
"Brendon told me everything," Leonard cut in sharply. "And no amount of explaining is going to justify it. So don't even try. We need to get you out of here."
He crouched beside Askai, fingers hovering near the wound before pressing lightly. Askai hissed, shoulders tensing.
Leonard's face darkened. "This is deep. You need stitches. A doctor." His jaw tightened. "You really are an idiot, walking around in the open when the streets are tearing themselves apart."
Askai swallowed a groan and pushed the gauze harder against his skull. "Aren't you jeopardising a lot, just to insult me? Tell me you at least have a plan."
"I do," Leonard said, too quickly. "Ramsay will be here with his men soon. An hour. Maybe half if we're lucky. We'll have to move carefully. Megalo—the bald bastard you saw earlier—he's working with East Guard handlers. Been delivering heads, intelligence, favors. He's climbing fast. One wrong step and the whole thing collapses. And you—" Leonard gestured at him sharply. "You can't afford any delay."
Leonard kept talking, words stacking over each other, but Askai had stopped hearing them.
Ramsay.
The name landed like a hammer blow.
Ramsay couldn't know. He couldn't.
"Have you told him?" Askai asked quietly.
Leonard blinked. "What?"
"Have you told Ramsay I'm alive?"
"I—" Leonard faltered, thrown off balance. "I haven't spoken to him yet. Brendon has." He straightened, irritation flaring. "Are you really still insisting on staying dead? After where that's landed you? You can die for real this time, Kai. Megalo's unhinged. He doesn't reason—he acts. Sit here. Don't talk to anyone. Don't even breathe too loud. If Megalo walks in, you say nothing. Understand me? Nothing."
"Okay. Okay. Okay," Askai said, lifting his shoulders in surrender.
Leonard finally exhaled, some of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. "I'm leaving," he said. "But I'll be back."
The door shut behind him with a dull, final sound.
And then it hit.
Once he went back with Ramsay—once the West folded him back into its cold, orderly violence—that night would be the last time he ever saw Vance as he was now.
Laughing at him, hurting openly, holding a gaze too sharp for a man pretending not to care. That version would be gone.
The next time they met, there would be distance. And a gun. Pointed at his heart.
Askai swallowed, throat working around the ache. There was no world in which Vance would believe him. Not after this. Not after him returning to the West. Not after secrets piled atop secrets until truth itself looked like a trick.
To Vance, Askai wouldn't be a man who had tried—and failed—to stay honest. He would be a mole. And Vance would retaliate for making a fool out of him.
He closed his eyes and behind those closed lids, an impossible fantasy bloomed anyway—uninvited, stubborn, cruel.
What if he told him now?
Not later.
What if he told Vance who he really was—where he came from, what he'd done, what he'd never done. What if he told him why he stayed away. Why he ran. Why every instinct he had screamed to protect rather than betray.
Even in that fragile, treacherous vision, Vance didn't forgive him. Askai didn't insult him with that hope. But maybe—maybe—he wouldn't hunt him either. Maybe he would turn his face away instead of leveling a gun. Maybe he would say nothing at all and let Askai exist on the edges of his world.
Not close. Not trusted. But there.
Enough that Askai could still see him sometimes. Across a room. Down a street. Alive.
The thought hurt worse than the wound. And still—it made him smile. A small, broken thing, pulled loose by desperation. A fantasy so thin it barely held together, but it softened the pain, dulled the terror, made the bleeding feel almost distant.
Wishful. Pathetic. Human.
The door creaked.
Askai's eyes snapped open.
Megalo walked in mid-call, phone pressed to his ear, boots loud against the concrete. He didn't look at Askai at first, just paced once, jaw tight, listening. Then he stopped.
His gaze slid over Askai like a hand weighing meat.
He ended the call without a word.
"Boy," Megalo said pleasantly. Too pleasantly. "Who do you work for?"
Askai shifted, the movement sending fire through his skull. "Depends," he said carefully. "On who's asking."
Megalo's smile thinned. "Wrong answer."
Askai tried again, slower. "I do jobs. I go where the money—"
Megalo leaned in close, voice dropping. "I know you're not East. Just had a little chat with my handler. So don't insult me by cooking up stories." His eyes gleamed with something sharp and delighted. "And don't think Leonard's going to come crashing through that door. He's busy."
He reached behind him. An iron mallet slid into view - heavy, ugly, its head nicked with old stains that weren't rust.
Megalo's grin widened.
Askai saw it then—not anger. Not even cruelty. Madness. He looked ….. unhinged.
But Askai was already drifting somewhere else—half in the fantasy, half in the wreckage of reality—until the line between the two blurred beyond recognition.
And he made the mistake.
"Tell your handler something," Askai said quietly.
Megalo paused, amused. "Oh?"
"Tell him I said I work for Kyrion," Askai went on, voice steady despite the roaring in his head. "The commander's lap dog."
Megalo's brows lifted.
"Tell him," Askai continued, lifting his gaze, eyes bright with something dangerous and calm, "that I want to talk to the commander. Personally."
The smile slid off Megalo's face.
Slowly.
And in its place—interest took root.