Page 107 of Hide From Me

“Shit.” The word slips out before I can stop it. My chest aches, but I’m not sure if it’s for him or because I’m picturing Raylen. It’s a completely differentscenario, but it’s just as easy for someone to decide you’re not worth it anymore once they find out the real you.

Jon smirks, but there’s no warmth in it. “Don’t worry. Everyone’s story is different. Some get it right the first time. Others… well, they take a few scars before they figure it out.”

Jon looks up as we stop under the jagged makeshift skylight. The moon’s glow spills in just enough to catch Delilah’s silhouette on the roof. She’s still, her scope glinting faintly through the broken glass like a second pair of eyes watching over us.

Jon nods at her. “Just don’t wait too long, Moe. If you think it’s right, don’t let it slip through your fingers.”

The words hit deeper than they should. My throat goes tight, and I force a swallow.

“Shit’s deep. You said she lived up to her name?”

Jon starts walking again, casually, like it’s nothing. Like he wasn't just staring at the ceiling, like Delilah was brighter than the moon.

“Karma.”

My world narrows to that one word.

My lungs freeze. My boots root to the floor.

The sound of my grandfather shouting my mother’s name rings in my ears, replacing Jon's voice. Flashes of red hair sprawled across that cracked concrete floor in the warehouse flood my mind.

Oh God, not now.

My breathing becomes shallow, forcing me to loosen my grip on my gun and wrap my arm around my waist, trying to ease the pressure that’s tightening around me.

Jon keeps talking, oblivious to how the name is gutting me. “She definitely was my price to pay for whatever evil I had done in my life.”

He laughs, shaking his head. “It’s funny you kind of remind me of her. Not that you seem like a bad omen but the redhair—”

Before he can finish, his fist shoots up, and we all freeze.

Two figures are in the corner of the greenhouse—kneeling, hands zip-tied, shoulders slumped. One of them is bleeding.

The mission snaps back into focus, and I tighten my grip on my gun as I sweep right, hugging the wall, my heart hammering like a drum. Jon signals to King to fan out.

Something has shifted.

I don’t hear it. I feel it.

It’s as if the air is holding its breath as tightly as I'm holding my own just to keep it steady. Like we’re standing in the pause between the lightning strike and the thunder.

And I know—I know—the storm’s about to hit.

“Three on your nine,” Delilah snaps over the comms, her voice sharp and commanding. “One’s got an automatic.”

Everything detonates at once.

Gunfire erupts—a frenzied, deafening roar of metal and heat tearing through the greenhouse as if it were made of paper. The first round misses me by inches. The second doesn’t. It grazes my shoulder in a blistering slice, and pain surges through my nerves as if I’ve been branded.

“Fuck—” I hiss, but I don’t stop moving.

My hand finds Jon’s vest, yanking him down with me just as another burst of gunfire shatters the air above. We hit the floor hard, momentum tearing us apart mid-roll. I crash into a rusted display rack, the jagged metal biting into my ribs as glass explodes overhead like a rain of daggers.

I duck, pivot, and fire—two quick shots.

Two silhouettes crumple to the ground, but the third is still moving – still charging – and I can't fucking move. I'm too focused on watching Jon groan and roll onto his back from the force of colliding into the floor.

King intercepts without hesitation, as if he were born for this moment. His blade flashes in the dim green glow of our goggles. One clean arc, one wet impact, and then—silence.