Chapter Eight Cold Streets, Bright Lights
The Mercedes roared into the city just as dawn broke.
Neon lights flickered over shuttered storefronts, casting harsh colors on cracked pavement. Towering buildings rose like jagged teeth, their windows gleaming faintly in the gray morning. The city was alive, but not welcoming. It pulsed with a restless hunger stray dogs nosing trash heaps, shadows moving in alleys, the low hum of generators sputtering in the cold.
Arya pressed her forehead against the window, watching it all blur by. After endless days of trees, snow, and silence, the city was overwhelming too loud, too bright, too fast. And yet, it was safety. For now.
In the backseat, Mira stirred, her skin still pale, sweat beading her brow. She was fading fast.
"We need a doctor," Arya whispered.
Ivy's hands tightened on the wheel. "Doctors here cost money we don't have. And the wrong one could sell us out." His voice was calm, but there was a weight beneath it. He knew the city better than she did. Too well.
Arya turned toward him. "Then what's your plan? Just drive until she dies?"
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he pulled into a narrow alley, killing the headlights. The Mercedes idled quietly, steam curling from its hood.
He turned to face Arya fully for the first time since they'd escaped. His eyes were dark, unreadable. "You want the truth? We're not safe here. The mercenaries will have contacts in the city spies, informants, dirty officials. If we don't vanish now, we'll be cornered again."
Arya's stomach tightened. "So you're saying there's nowhere left?"
"I'm saying," Ivy replied quietly, "that surviving here is going to take more than luck. We'll need disguises. A place to disappear. People we can trust."
Her eyes narrowed. "And you already have someone in mind, don't you?"
His silence was the only answer she needed.
They abandoned the Mercedes a few blocks later, leaving it half-hidden in a deserted warehouse yard. Arya felt strangely attached to it like it had carried them from one world into another. But Ivy was right. It was a beacon for anyone hunting them.
The three of them slipped into the streets, Mira leaning heavily between Arya and Ivy. Snow had turned to slush here, gray and filthy, soaking through their boots. The city smelled of oil, smoke, and something bitter Arya couldn't name.
"Where are we going?" she asked as Ivy led them deeper into the maze of alleys.
"To someone who owes me," Ivy said simply.
Arya wanted to press, but one look at his expression told her he wouldn't explain not yet.
They turned a corner, and Ivy stopped before an old metal door with peeling paint. He knocked once, twice, then three times in a rhythm that sounded like code.
The door cracked open. A pair of wary eyes peered out.
"Ivy," a voice rasped, half-surprised, half-wary.
"Need a place," Ivy said.
The door opened wider, revealing a man in his fifties, scarred and broad-shouldered, with a cigarette dangling from his lips. His gaze flicked to Arya and Mira, then back to Ivy.
"You're dragging ghosts behind you again," the man muttered. But he stepped aside. "Come in."
The inside smelled of smoke and grease. It looked like an old auto-shop turned into a makeshift hideout tools scattered across tables, piles of engine parts, maps tacked to the walls.
The man who introduced himself as Kade helped settle Mira onto an old cot in the corner. He examined her wound with surprising gentleness, his rough fingers steady. "She's burning up," he muttered. "Lucky for you, I still know a medic who won't ask questions. But it'll cost."
Ivy nodded. "I'll cover it."
Arya frowned. "With what money? We barely escaped with our lives."
"I said I'll cover it," Ivy cut in sharply. His tone brooked no argument.
Kade smirked, lighting another cigarette. "Same old Ivy. Always making promises with blood he doesn't have yet."
Arya shot Ivy a questioning look, but he ignored her.
Hours later, after Mira had been treated and sedated by the medic Kade called in, Arya found herself pacing the dimly lit shop. Her mind wouldn't stop spinning the ambush, the getaway, the mercenaries, Mira's confession.
And Ivy.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him in the clearing moving like lightning, eyes burning, steady hands on the wheel as bullets flew past. He terrified her. He fascinated her. He made her feel safe, even when nothing was safe.
Finally, she cornered him while he was cleaning a knife at the workbench.
"You knew we'd make it," she said quietly.
He didn't look up. "No. I knew we had a chance. That's all."
"But you still risked it."
His hand stilled. Slowly, he raised his gaze to hers. For a moment, she saw something raw flicker there something unguarded.
"You don't survive people like them," he said softly, "without learning when to gamble everything. And when I looked at you… I knew it was worth the gamble."
Arya's breath caught.
Silence stretched between them, heavy and electric. She wanted to step closer. To bridge the impossible gap between fear and trust. Between survival and something more.
But before she could move, Kade's voice cut through the air.
"You two better get some rest. Tomorrow, we talk about what comes next."
Arya blinked, the spell broken. Ivy turned back to his knife, his mask sliding into place again.
But Arya's heart was still racing. Because for one fleeting moment, she had seen the man beneath the stone and she wasn't sure she could ever look away again.