Brooke.
Her face hits me without warning. The way she cups my face like she is holding me together with her hands. The sound of her voice when the screen goes black. The way she stays steady for me when everything else collapses.
I left her alone.
The chair scrapes loudly as I stand, the sound cutting through the room and echoing off marble and glass. I step over bodies without looking down, my focus narrowing until there is only one thing left that matters.
Then I hear it.
Sirens.
Faint at first, buried under the ringing in my ears, but they build fast. Too fast.
They are closer than they should be.
Luke tilts his head, listening with a grin that spreads slow and wide. “You should stay. Finish it. Maybe go out in a blaze of glory.”
I ignore him.
My brain shifts.
Everything inside me snaps into something colder, cleaner. I move fast without rushing, scanning the room, tracking sightlines, exits, angles. The main entrance is exposed. The side corridors will already be compromised once they breach.
There is a service hallway behind the bar.
I move toward it, stepping through blood and broken glass, keeping low. My boots leave prints, but it doesn't matter anymore. The scene is already beyond saving.
The sirens cut closer.
Doors slam somewhere down the hall. Voices cut through the noise, sharp and closing in.
“Clear the perimeter.”
“Move, move.”
They're here.
I slip into the service corridor and press myself into the shadow behind a structural column, just out of direct sight from the main hall entrance. My breathing slows on instinct, my grip on the shotgun loosening just enough to stay silent.
The ballroom doors burst open.
Officers flood in.
They move with precision, weapons raised as they sweep the room. One of them halts mid-step, and even from here I see the exact moment it registers the bodies and how many there are.
“Jesus Christ,” someone mutters.
“Call it in,” another says. “We’ve got multiple DOAs. This is a mass casualty.”
They spread out, stepping carefully through the blood, checking pulses that aren't there, calling out positions, confirming what I already know.
One of them reaches Victor Voss.
“Victim is—” He stops. “Fuck. That’s Voss.”
The name carries.
It changes the tone immediately.
