The hospital was silent. Too silent.
Marcus Ellory stood a few feet away, hands clasped behind his back, as if we were in some perverse boardroom meeting instead of a death trap.
"You shouldn't have come, Cross," he said, his voice smooth, calm… precise. Like a blade sliding over silk.
I lifted myself slowly from the chair I'd been tied to. Every muscle screamed, my vision still swimming from the blow to my head. But the pistol in my coat… that was a lifeline.
Marcus didn't move. He didn't need to. The space itself seemed to obey him. Shadows clung to his form, wrapping him in menace.
"You have questions," he continued. "And I have answers. Some will kill you. Some… will make you wish you'd never asked."
I tightened my grip on my pistol, eyes scanning the room.
Old gas pipes ran along the ceiling and walls. Flammable. Convenient. Dangerous. My mind started racing.
Marcus took a step forward. Calm. Methodical. Calculated.
And then, the move I had to make clicked.
As he lunged, I fired.
The bullets ricocheted off the pipes. Sparks flew. Flames licked the ceiling. Smoke started curling along the walls.
Marcus paused, just long enough for me to duck behind a metal gurney. The fire spread fast. The hospital was a cage, now an inferno.
Masked figures from earlier scattered, shrieking in panic, but Marcus didn't move. He watched, calculating. Every escape route I considered… he was two steps ahead.
I made my move.
The window at the end of the corridor. High enough to kill if I fell wrong, but low enough to land if I timed it right. I had no choice.
One breath.
One step.
And I jumped.
The world tilted.
Wind roared past my ears.
Below, the wet city reflected neon like fractured glass.
I hit the roof of a moving train with a bone-jarring thud, rolling to absorb the impact. Sparks flew from the metal as my boots skidded along the roof.
Heart hammering, lungs burning, I lay there for a moment, staring at the smoke rising behind the hospital. Marcus Ellory's silhouette remained framed in the inferno, calm, untouchable, a predator unshaken by chaos.
I was alive. Temporarily.
But I knew one thing: Marcus had marked me now.
And this was only the beginning.