“Explain something to me,” Cav said quietly. “Why do you think dying is the better choice?”

  The man beside him didn’t answer at first. He stood still, dressed in the black jacket like the others, eyes locked on the glowing sprawl of the market below. The tension in his jaw betrayed the confusion. Then, finally, he replied:

  “Because living is a gamble. And most of the time, the house wins.”

  Cav nodded slowly, eyes following a trio of gangsters slipping into the side entrance of the bar.

  “Then why are you still alive?”

  That made the man turn. A slight frown tugged at his face. He didn’t like being asked questions he hadn’t already asked himself.

  “Maybe I’m here to help someone. Maybe I’m not done yet.” His voice was clipped, tired. But then, a softer edge crept in. “Why are you?”

  Cav didn’t answer right away. He watched the rooftops—how the black-jacketed figures moved without speaking, a quiet ballet of preparation. Rifles held low. Eyes sharp. Waiting for a signal.

  “There’s something beautiful about it,” Cav said at last. “Conscious beings, throwing themselves into danger for others. Even if they’re wrong. Even if they’re broken. It’s still… something.”

  The man raised an eyebrow. “That’s not an answer.”

  Cav took a step toward the edge of the rooftop. Neon pulsed against his skin in shifting waves of orange and green. His hands stayed by his sides, relaxed.

  “I don’t know why I’m alive,” he admitted. “But I think it’s because I want to know before I go. Dying now would mean dying uncertain.”

  A few beats of silence passed between them. Then, with sudden suspicion, the man narrowed his eyes and raised a flashlight. The sharp click of a switch echoed quietly as the beam lit Cav’s chest.

  “No jacket,” the man said. “You’re not with us. Who the hell are you?”

  Cav didn’t move. He kept his voice low, his posture calm. “Just another stray. A little too curious, maybe. I’ve been following your team. Watching how you work.”

  That did nothing to ease the tension. The man reached for his sidearm, leveling it low toward Cav’s feet—a warning more than a threat.

  “Don’t,” Cav said gently, hands lifting halfway. “I mean no harm. I’m not here to sabotage anything. I just haven’t decided yet. Isn’t a man allowed to doubt before he chooses a side?”

  The man said nothing. But the gun didn’t move either.

  The flashlight beam hung on Cav like a noose. Across the rooftops, every shadowed figure turned slightly, hands twitching near triggers. Cav didn’t flinch. He stayed still, letting the light define him.

  From a rooftop two buildings down, De froze.

  He recognized the shape, the posture—even from that distance.

  De lifted a hand to his forehead, eyes narrowing, mouth tightening.

  “…What the fuck are you doing here…” he muttered under his breath.

  Ony caught the tone immediately. Jake glanced between them. De wasn’t reacting like a commander assessing a threat. He was reacting like someone who’d seen a ghost.

  Something shifted behind De’s eyes. A knot formed in his chest.

  De tried to stay logical. He tried to focus.

  He’s too risky.

  What if he’s here to sabotage us? What if he’s aligned with the corps? What if he speaks to Hart? What if he says too much?

  But the thoughts didn’t land cleanly. Another feeling started to creep in behind them.

  Doubt.

  For the briefest moment, Cav reminded him of someone else—his little brother. That look in the eyes, the way he stood, just outside the fray, watching but not judging. The memory was unwanted and sudden. It burned.

  De pushed it away, but it opened the floodgates. Fear.

  Grief.

  Hopelessness.

  A mental war started in his mind, fierce and invisible. Cold logic versus old wounds. Suspicion versus longing. He barely heard Ony’s voice next to him.

  De’s eyes flicked back toward Cav, now surrounded by rooftop soldiers who didn’t know what to make of him. Every one of them waiting for the signal to pull the trigger.

  “Calm yourself, De,” he whispered, jaw clenched tight.

  He breathed through his nose. He counted the seconds. One. Two. Three.

  The chaos inside slowed—like a storm receding behind fog. His face still twitched with the remnants of the inner struggle, and Ony and Jake could see it. He was unraveling, then stitching himself back together, all in the span of a heartbeat.

  “Sorry,” De finally said. “My head hurts.” But the last word cracked in his throat like it was hiding something else. Regret, maybe. Or pain he hadn’t named yet.

  “You know him?” Ony asked, stepping closer.

  De didn’t answer right away.

  His eyes stayed locked on Cav.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Why am I doing this?” De whispered to himself, his voice barely audible.

  The world around him slowed to a crawl—no, not just slowed—froze. Rooftops, shadows, whispers of wind brushing dust off concrete—all of it fell into silence. The present was peeled away like old skin, and beneath it, memory bled through.

  Grief had been layered over with purpose. Pain had been patched with plans. But now the seams split, and the memories poured in, tearing through the fragile new fabric he’d stitched together over the years.

  And yet… De remained still. Calm. Measured. His eyes unfocused, but not lost. His body didn’t twitch or falter. He stood straight, like a statue left in a battlefield long after the war had ended.

  Inside, though, he was sorting through ghosts.

  He weighed them.

  Held them in his hands.

  Each memory, a weight. A truth. A lesson.

  “Life is pain,” he told himself.

  And then he remembered something else.

  Before the war. Before the organization. Before everything burned.

  He was happy.

  It started with laughter—so distant it sounded like it came from someone else’s life. But it was his. A high, warm laughter. His own, as a child.

  He was running in the garden of his childhood home, chasing a ball with his father. The sun beamed down like it was blessing them. His mother sat nearby at first, smiling faintly. Then she joined them, barefoot in the grass, her laughter joining theirs.

  He felt the wind on his face, the rhythm of their steps, the careless weightlessness of being loved.

  Then inside—Juno, his little brother. Small, messy hands smeared with bright finger paint. Laughing, unbothered, even as he knocked over a cup of water. It spilled across the table and onto the floor.

  For a second, there was silence. De remembered waiting—expecting scolding.

  But no one scolded.

  Instead, they all looked at each other. And burst into laughter.

  The sound filled the whole house. The whole street, it seemed. That laughter... that was the sound he’d heard echoing just now.

  De stood still on the rooftop, eyes fixed on Cav, but his mind adrift in that moment.

  Ony glanced over. He could see something was happening inside De—something deep. A storm in slow motion.

  But he didn’t interrupt.

  He just let De stand there, quietly unraveling, quietly remembering.

  “What’s happening?” Jake asked, his voice quiet but tense. He glanced at Ony, who didn’t respond, only kept his eyes locked on De.

  Jake followed Ony’s gaze and finally saw it—the fuse had been lit. The man standing in that spotlight wasn’t just an outsider. He was something else. A trigger.

  Below them, the market was becoming a paradox. Streets looked emptier by the second, but rooftops and alleys brimmed with dark figures slipping into position. Civilians avoided the square now like it had suddenly grown teeth.

  Then De spoke again.

  “Why…” he muttered. “Why was life beautiful?”

  He knew the answer—he just didn’t want it.

  “Rif was right,” he growled, spitting down from the ledge. “This world is fucking hell.”

  Then louder, so even the market below might’ve heard:

  “You fucking coward.”

  The words landed heavy. But they weren’t aimed at Cav exactly. Not fully.

  Ony narrowed his eyes, heart pounding. De was off-script. De was never off-script.

  He moved toward him cautiously, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Who is that?” he asked, voice low.

  De turned to face him, and Ony saw a face he didn’t recognize. The features were the same—but something inside had changed. Still calculating, still sharp, but now—grieving. Raw.

  Instinctively, Ony took a small step back, but kept his hand on De’s shoulder.

  “You’re pathetic,” De said, eyes back on Cav.

  Cav tensed, his boots shifting ever so slightly on the gravel. He hadn’t expected this level of venom. He’d expected suspicion. Maybe interrogation. But not this.

  All around them, the shadowed members of the organization were frozen mid-breath. Watching. Guns at the ready but not yet raised. Everyone waited for the signal.

  De walked forward slowly, standing on the ledge—one step from oblivion.

  Ony moved beside him quickly, his hand finally slipping away from De’s shoulder.

  “De,” he said, voice firmer now, “remember why you are doing this.”

  Then Ony stepped forward, facing Cav with a sharp breath and raised his hand—the signal.

  “You’re not fighting alone. We’ll deal with him.”

  But before the signal could drop, De’s hand gripped Ony’s wrist.

  Silence again.

  De looked at Ony. His face had changed—no longer blank, no longer pained. A slight smirk touched the corner of his mouth.

  Without a word, De slowly lowered Ony’s arm.

  And nodded.

  A strange, amused nod.

  De exhaled, frustrated, his face suddenly snapping back to the familiar one everyone knew. Controlled. Cold.

  “Fucking hell, Ony. I’m not sure what that was,” he said, voice low and composed again. “He reminded me of my little brother, and I just got emotional. Forgive me.”

  He stepped back from the ledge, pulling Ony with him by the arm. He didn’t let go.

  He knew exactly what he was doing. What all of this was.

  His cup was filling.

  He could feel it.

  Cav exhaled too, finally.

  He glanced at the man beside him and gave a small, almost playful smile.

  “Relax,” he said. “I’m not an enemy.”

  He turned toward the rooftop stairs.

  Step one.

  The wind hit his face. The taste in the air—ash, metal, and something strangely familiar. That night came back to him. That argument with De. That rare flash of connection, quickly gone.

  Step two.

  His foot hesitated. His body moved slower now, uncertain. Something didn’t feel right.

  He blinked, once.

  Was he grieving something?

  The flashlight turned off. The rooftop dimmed. The world went quiet again—too quiet.

  Step three.

  Time started to bend.

  He felt it. The seconds dragging, pulling unnaturally.

  He shouldn’t feel this way.

  “My head hurts,” Cav muttered to himself, barely audible. His voice didn’t sound like his own.

  Something deep inside screamed. Something primal, screaming to run—

  To turn around.

  The fourth step...

  The flashlight snapped back on.

  Bright. Direct.

  It hit him full in the chest like a spotlight from God.

  Cav turned quickly, shielding his eyes—

  The black-jacketed man stood there, arm raised. Gun pointed.

  Cav quickly looked at De.

  His hand was raised.

  Unmoving. Commanding.

  Cav froze. The wind stilled.

  De stood like a statue. His eyes locked on Cav.

  “I will give life another chance,” he said.

  Not to Cav.

  To himself.

  To the sky.

  To the boy who once laughed in a sunlit garden.

  In the corners of his eyes, tears pushed through—not breaking him, but leaking from a place he couldn’t seal off anymore.

  His hand shook violently. He didn’t lower it.

  He couldn’t.

  He saw Juno—

  Smiling, painting, knocking over a cup of water.

  All of them laughing.

  He saw the version of himself he buried.

  He felt it—all of it.

  The weight. The grief. The rage. The reason.

  He closed his eyes.

  And then, finally—

  He dropped his hand.

  The shot cracked through the air.