Chapter 104: The Mayor is Dead.

Code took one slow, deliberate step toward me, the blade in his right hand still dripping fresh blood onto the dusty floor in thick, glistening drops that soaked dark into the worn carpet.

"What have you done?" I asked again, voice low.

He tilted his head slightly, a faint, almost playful glint in his eyes. "Cleared the way," he said softly.

Then he turned and leapt through the window in one fluid motion.

Glass exploded outward in a glittering, razor-sharp shower, catching the evening light like a burst of diamonds. I watched him twist mid-air like a cat, drive both blades into the exterior wall with a sharp crack, and descend in controlled jumps, vanishing below the ledge in seconds. A practiced escape. He had planned this exit from the moment he stepped into the room.

He was always going to run, I thought. The moment Major dropped, Code was already gone.

I leaned through the broken frame, jagged glass teeth framing the view. Three floors below, Sinn, Harmione, and May were already strolling toward the convoy like they were on an afternoon walk. Their movements were calm, unhurried, boots kicking up small puffs of dust under the harsh sun. Nothing in their posture suggested they had heard the violence above.

*Sinn knows,* I thought. *He sent Code up here. He’s walking to the cars because he already knows what happened.*

A sound from the door, boots skidding to a halt.

One of Major’s men filled the doorway. His eyes locked with mine across the room, then dropped to Major’s body sprawled on the floor, blood spreading in a slow, widening crimson lake across the faded carpet. Shock, grief, and raw fury twisted his face in rapid succession, his mouth opening in a silent gasp.

He turned and bolted.

His footsteps thundered down the hallway, followed by a desperate, guttural shout that echoed through the entire building like a death knell:

"MAJOR IS DEAD!"

There it is.

I slammed my communication watch. "Sherry."

Sherry answered before the second pulse. "Bram."

"Leave now," I said. "Tell anyone still inside. Right now."

"Okay." No questions. I could already picture her moving.

I ran.

Second floor. The stairs we had come up were no longer an option. Major’s men were going to come up fast and come up angry and they were going to come up armed. Two hundred people who had survived the forsaken city for years by being organized and disciplined and willing to fight.

Mercury emerged from the corridor as I was still calculating.

"Abram." She saw me and I grabbed her hand and pulled her against the wall, her back pressing into the cracked plaster.

From below, the shout hit the second floor like a shockwave.

"MAJOR IS DEAD!"

Then came the storm: staccato gunfire cracking through the halls, shouts multiplying, boots pounding in every direction. The specific chaos of a community that had just lost its anchor.

"What’s happening?" Mercury asked, eyes wide.

"Move." I pulled her toward the door at the end of the corridor.

"Where’s Major?" she pressed, running. "What’s going on?"

*She doesn’t know,*

We burst through the last door. I slammed it shut behind us. The room was dim and lived-in, rumpled blankets on a cot, scattered personal items, faint stripes of dusty sunlight slicing through threadbare curtains. Muffled gunfire rattled the walls like angry hail.

Mercury locked the door and pressed her back to it. I crossed to the window, peeled the curtain open by a single inch, and peered down.

Below, Sherry was sprinting for the lead vehicle, arrows and bullets slicing the air around her in whistling streaks. She wrenched the door open, dove inside, and yanked it shut with a heavy metallic thud.

Good, I thought. She’s in.

Oddo and Owen were the last ones out in the open, legs pumping across the dusty lot. Major’s men swarmed after them like angry hornets. An arrow slammed into Oddo’s thigh with a meaty thunk, he stumbled hard, leg buckling, but kept driving forward through the pain.

Owen didn’t break stride. He raised his arm. A bright, crackling crimson arc of electricity ripped through the air and struck Oddo square in the back. He convulsed and collapsed in the open. Arrows found him instantly, three, four, five, punching into his body before he could rise.

Owen didn’t even slow down. He reached the armored car, climbed in, and sealed the door with a clang.

I watched it happen from the second floor window and said nothing and filed it in the row with Speed and the Guardian door and the navigation system, all the things I had seen and hadn’t resolved yet.

The convoy roared to life, engines growling like beasts. Roadblocks had already been cleared. Sinn’s decision was made, they were rolling out, tires kicking up clouds of fine dust that glowed gold in the sunlight.

They were leaving without us.

Major’s men appeared on the ground below, running after the vehicles. They couldn’t close the distance. The cars were already past the point where feet could reach them.

Then the same man who had seen me in the room with Major’s body appeared among them. He skidded to a stop, pointed up at our window with a wild, accusatory stab of his arm, and shouted something I couldn’t hear. Every head snapped upward. Faces twisted with rage. They sprinted back toward the building entrance.

They know I’m still inside, I thought. They might even guess the exact floor.

Mercury touched my arm from behind. I turned to her.

She looked out the window at the now-empty street where the convoy had been, then back at me, confusion and dawning horror on her face.

"I think we might have a problem," I said.

I took her hands in mine. She needed to know what had happened and she needed to hear it from me before someone else came through that door and told it worse.

A hand tapped my shoulder from behind. I spun.