The impacts echo down the stairwell.
The stairs are narrow and steep, concrete worn smooth at the center. I move fast, one hand on the rail, weapon angled toward the steps. Footsteps follow me from the corridor.
I fire once and keep moving. He drops forward and blocks the step, and the man behind him stumbles. I use the pause to take two more steps and pivot, keeping the rail between me and the next angle. Another shape appears, weapon high. A hit lands, this one higher. My arm goes numb for a moment and then comes back angry. I switch hands and keep firing. I think about time.
Ana needs time.
The building shifts again. Doors open on the floors above and below. People step out, confused, then stop when they see blood on the stairs and bodies where there shouldn’t be bodies. Someone screams. Another person drops low and pulls a door shut behind them.
An alarm starts, a steady tone that fills the stairwell.
I keep moving down.
A man rushes up from below. He comes fast, weapon up but not steady. I catch him at arm’s length and fire into his chest. He hits the wall and slides down, leaving a dark streak behind him.
The stairwell fills with noise now, voices shouting over each other. I take the next turn hard and nearly run into another man coming up. We slam shoulder to shoulder. My gun jams against his jacket. I drive my forearm into his throat and shove him back. He stumbles. I wrench the weapon free and fire once into his side before he can recover.
Below me, footsteps scatter. Above me, more are coming down. I back toward the intersection again and listen.
I don’t hear Ana.
Then gunfire slows. Boots stop pounding the stairs. Voices shift to short bursts over radios. I move down, slower now. Smoke hangs between the floors. The railing is chipped where rounds struck it. Blood marks the steps.
Move,I tell myself and go.
Two floors down, I stop and listen. Nothing I recognize. No breath, no scrape, no sign she’s close.
One more level.
The service door on the second floor is cracked open. The hinge squeaks when I touch it. Light spills out. I clear the corners. No one here. I clear them again.
One more level.
The exit is ahead. Cold air hits my face before I reach it. I push through the door. The alley opens up. Damp concrete. Trash bins lined against the wall. Traffic noise bleeding in from the street. A horn. A bus grinding through a gear change.
I move fast. The second car is parked where I left it, tight against the curb, nose angled out for a clean pull. It’s still there. Engine cold. Windows untouched. Ana isn’t there.
I move forward slowly now, eyes working the edges. The ground is wet from earlier rain, and there are marks in it. Not many. Two sets of prints that weren’t here before. One heel dragged half an inch. A smear near the rear door that could be dirt. Could besomething else. Not blood. No casing. No struggle loud enough to leave chaos.
The driver’s door is still locked. She knows the route and the timing, and she would have signaled if she had space to do it.
There’s no signal. No movement. No breath. No echo of her steps.
My chest tightens, not with panic, but with recognition. This is how it happens. Not noise. Not spectacle.
I stand in the alley and for the first time in years, I don’t know if Ana is alive or if she has been taken so cleanly that the city has already swallowed her whole.
30
ANA
The fourth-floor stairwell empties into a lower corridor that smells dusty and stale. The lights burn steady and bright, every corner exposed.
Cameras sit in the ceiling domes. The lenses face the hall. I smooth my coat and set my pace. Not fast. Not slow. Just a woman who signed in upstairs and is leaving because something disrupted her work.
Two doors down, a man stands frozen in the threshold, phone in his hand. He looks at the blood on my sleeve, then at my face. My breath stutters before I speak.
“There’s a woman by the stairwell,” I say, voice shaking. “She’s bleeding. Please. You have to help her.”
