Page 68 of Property of Scar

A sharp, rising whine cuts through the space between us.

Her eyes lift to mine, steady in a way that locks everything else out. “Go!”

She doesn’t wait to see if I do.

She moves.

And the world fractures around it.

One second she’s in front of me, the next she’s already across the floor, her body hitting a line and committing to it with a speed that turns distance into something irrelevant.

I follow on instinct.

My foot hits the floor and pushes, and the space disappears.

Everything sharpens.

Every angle, every obstacle, every piece of debris becomes something to account for, to move around, to use. The broken tables, the scattered equipment, the fractured concrete, none of it slows us, not when the pace climbs past human, past reasonable, into something that doesn’t negotiate.

We don’t run through the warehouse so much as tear through it. Distance disappears beneath us in hard, powerful bursts, my body driving forward while concrete, steel, and stacked pallets flash past in a blur.

Cali is already moving ahead of me, adjusting her line without hesitation, somehow finding the same path I would have taken and cutting to it before I consciously make the choice myself.

We hit the doorway flat out, and neither of us backs off.

I catch the frame with one hand as I pass, using the momentum to sling myself around the corner before driving forward again. My boots hammer the concrete for barely a heartbeat before I push off, eating up more ground while the warehouse rushes by around us in flashes of steel beams, loading bays, and industrial shadows.

The world narrows, as it always does, when things turn violent.

The target.

The route.

The hunt.

Everything else can fucking wait.

Cold air slams into us.

Night, the open space, and we don’t stop.

The lot stretches out ahead with gravel, broken asphalt, open distance, and we tear across it at a pace that strips the world down to sensation. Wind rips past, dragging at clothes, hair, and anything loose enough to catch it. The ground hits fast and hard underfoot, each step a controlled impact that launches the next, my body running at the edge of what it can take and not caring.

She’s fast.

Not just fast… precise.

Every step placed exactly where it needs to be, no wasted motion, no excess, her body cutting through space like it was built for this moment.

I match it, then push past it.

My hand catches her arm mid-stride, not slowing her, just redirecting, pulling her half a step closer as I shift our line, angling us farther from the building in the fraction of a second it takes to calculate the blast radius.

“Keep moving,” I snap.

She doesn’t argue, and we clear the edge of the lot, and the world behind us detonates.

The sound hits first. A violent, concussive crack that tears through the air and slams into my back like a physical force.