It was nearing sunset when the garage door creaked open and in walked her—the super hot, sexy, mysterious goth biker chick.

  Tall. Leather-cd. Silhouetted by the dying light like she was conjured by some gothic romance novel and then set loose in my garage. She had that quiet, watchful presence like she could see more than I was saying. Which, honestly, was terrifying. And hot.

  “Be there in a sec!” I called from the office, quickly wiping at my face with a grease-stained rag. It wasn’t a great look, but I’d taken worse beatings today than a bruised ego. Still, kind of wanted to not be actively bleeding while talking to her.

  When I stepped into the garage, she was waiting beside her bike, perfectly still, like she didn’t just own the room but had always been part of it.

  “Hey,” I said, doing my best to act like I hadn’t just been fixing engine parts with one hand and losing my mind about her with the other. “Good timing. Just finished the work about an hour ago.”

  She stepped forward, her boots making the kind of click that meant business. “I appreciate it.”

  “Transmission’s clean now, ignition’s rewired, frame’s realigned—steering still pulls a bit left, but I figured that’s part of the charm.”

  She traced a gloved finger along the handlebars with surprising gentleness, then looked up at me with that unreadable half-smile.

  “You’re very skilled.”

  I might’ve blushed. “I, uh… tinker.”

  She reached into her jacket, pulled out a slim wallet, and handed me a sleek bck card. It wasn’t just stylish—it felt expensive.

  “Payment,” she said, like the word itself was ceremonial.

  I gnced down. The transaction amount was exact. Pre-loaded. Generous. Definitely more than I usually charge for this kind of job.

  Then she held out another card—this one different. No name. No logo. Just a single, clean silver number embossed into the matte finish.

  “And for Later.” She said with a suave wink.

  My fingers brushed hers when I took it. Her hand was cold. Mine was sweaty. Cool.

  “Oh. Right. Repairs. Sure. Anytime. I’m here. Usually. Unless I’m not. Lunch breaks. That sort of thing.”

  She smiled, slow and amused. “I like people who know how to fix things.”

  I stared, brain completely offline, as she mounted her bike like she belonged to it—and maybe it belonged to her.

  As the engine purred to life, she gave me a final gnce over her shoulder.

  “Thank you, Ivy.”

  My heart stopped. “You—how did—?”

  But then she was gone, peeling out into the dusk, vanishing like a dream that had lingered just long enough to feel real.

  I looked down at the card in my hand. The number shimmered faintly in the golden light.

  I exhaled. “Right, the name tag.”

  Me and Randy finished up not long after the owner of the beat-up sedan rolled in. The guy gave a polite nod, handed over cash like it personally offended him, then drove off with the world's loudest thank-you honk.

  I wiped my hands on a rag as the st bit of daylight spilled orange over the concrete floor. The air smelled like oil and ozone—one of my favorite combos, weirdly enough.

  As I rolled the garage door halfway down, I called out over my shoulder, “Hey, wanna go grab drinks?”

  Randy was locking up the tool chest and barely looked up. “Only if it’s your shout.”

  “Sure, but I’m only paying for you, not your mates. Last time I got stuck footing the bill for three randos who thought ‘IPA’ meant ‘infinite pint allowance.’”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving a hand dismissively, already grabbing his jacket. “I told you Jerry was gonna bring his weird friends. That’s on you for being an optimist.”

  “I’m a mechanic, not a mind reader.”

  “Debatable.”

  I tossed the rag into the bin and flicked the light off behind me. “Alright, come on, before I change my mind.”

  He grinned, falling into step beside me. “First round’s on you. Second one’s on you too, if I py my cards right.”

  I snorted. “You’re not that charming, Randy.”

  “We’ll see,” he said, already fishing his vape out of his pocket like we were going to war.

  We stepped out into the cooling night air, the city humming around us like it hadn’t quite made up its mind whether to wind down or rev up again.

  And honestly? A drink sounded real damn good.

  We didn’t have to walk far to get to the bar. It wasn’t seedy, exactly—more like comfortably worn. One of those pces that knew what it was and didn’t bother pretending otherwise. Dim lighting, cracked leather booths, a jukebox that only pyed sad rock balds or aggressively horny pop hits from twenty years ago. The kind of bar where the bartender knows how to pour a whiskey without asking questions, and the regurs all pretend not to notice when someone walks in looking like they got chewed up and spat out by life.

  I shoved the door open with my shoulder, letting the warm smell of old beer and fried food wash over me. Familiar. A little sticky, but familiar.

  Randy peeled off toward the bar without needing to ask what I wanted. Good man. I found a booth in the corner with the least suspicious stain pattern and slid into it with a sigh. Muscles aching in that satisfying post-brawl, post-fix-it kind of way. The kind of tired that lets you know you did something today, even if half of it was getting thrown through concrete.

  I leaned back, eyes half-lidded, listening to the low murmur of voices and clinking gsses. Letting the buzz of normalcy soak in. No vilins. No kinetic energy. No cryptid women trying to murder me with barrels.

  Just me, a slightly sticky table, and the promise of alcohol.

  Randy returned a minute ter, two pints in hand and that smirk he always wore when he thought he was being charming. He set my drink down and slid into the seat across from me.

  “To surviving another day,” he said, raising his gss.

  I clinked mine against his. “Barely.”

  I took a sip of my perfectly adequate beer—lukewarm, vaguely hoppy, and only mildly reminiscent of piss—and leaned back in the booth, my body creaking like an old hinge. Every joint made a quiet protest, but I ignored it in favor of good company and decent alcohol.

  “So,” I said, stretching out the word, “any luck with that girl you’ve been seeing? Shelly, right?”

  Randy clicked his tongue and gave a dramatic shrug. “Nah. She bailed in the middle of, like, four dates. Just stood up and walked out mid-sentence the st time.”

  “Big oof.” I winced. “That’s, uh… well. At least she’s consistent?”

  “Consistently a pain in the ass, maybe.”

  I raised my gss. “Here’s to dodging that bullet.”

  He clinked his against mine with mock solemnity, then tilted it back for a long gulp. “Still doing better than you, though.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Ouch.”

  He grinned, full of teeth and mischief. “C’mon, I’m not wrong. Didn’t you say it’s been, what, two years?”

  “Two and some change,” I muttered, taking another drink like it could wash the shame off my tongue.

  “Damn, Ivy. You’re a drought.”

  “Thanks, Randy. I’ll be sure to etch that onto my gravestone.”

  He leaned in, tapping a finger on the table. “Looks like the clouds might be parting, though. That biker babe gave you her number, right?”

  I scoffed, hiding the heat already creeping up my neck. “Yeah, so what?”

  His smirk widened, knowing and merciless. “So… you, my dear boss, are suffering from a chronic case of ULS.”

  I blinked. “ULS?”

  He raised his eyebrows in mock pity. “Useless Lesbian Syndrome.”

  I stared at him for a second. “That’s not a real diagnosis.”

  “Totally is. Highly contagious. Symptoms include: hot women handing you their number, and you doing jack shit about it.”

  I groaned and let my head thunk gently against the back of the booth. “Goddamn it.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, patting my hand with exaggerated sympathy. “We’ll get you through this. One awkward flirt at a time.”

  “Great. Can’t wait for my next check-up.”

  Randy raised his gss again. “To recovery.”

  “To shutting the hell up,” I replied, but I was smiling. Just a little.

  A few guys wandered over to our table, clearly spotting us on their way in. I recognized most of them immediately—and not in a way that inspired joy.

  Jerry. Lucas. And… huh. Who was the third one? Something about him was ringing a bell, but I couldn’t quite pce it.

  “Hey, Ivy,” Jerry greeted with a crooked smile that usually preceded some brand of mild jackassery.

  Randy gnced over, frowning. “What, no love for me?”

  Jerry looked at him with the practiced indifference of someone who’s known you too long to pretend. “What about you?”

  I snorted into my beer. “Still charming, I see.”

  Lucas gave a small wave. “Hey, Ivy. Don’t mind Jerry. He’s still bitter you beat him in that race three years ago.”

  “That’s because I did beat him. With a ft tire,” I said, grinning.

  Lucas chuckled and gestured toward the stranger with them. “This guy’s Eric. New friend. Met him the other week.”

  Eric gave me a cocky little grin, like he already knew I’d be trouble and couldn’t wait to find out how much. “Hey. Eric. New guy.”

  He stuck his hand out for a shake, and I took it. Firm grip. Confident. Smirky. That familiarity buzzed again—voice, maybe? Or that look in his eye like he knew a joke I didn’t.

  “Have we met before?” I asked, narrowing my eyes slightly.

  “Not unless you hang out in very disappointing coffee shops,” he said with a wink. “Or… maybe you’ve just seen me in your dreams.”

  “Wow,” I said ftly. “You come with that line or did you pay extra for the deluxe cringe package?”

  He ughed, easy and unbothered. “So do I have something on my face, or am I just the most handsome twink you’ve ever seen?”

  Randy nearly choked on his drink.

  I gave Eric a slow, appraising once-over, trying not to let my smirk show. “You’ve got something on your face, alright. It’s called audacity.”

  “Works for me,” he said, settling into the empty seat next to Lucas like he owned the pce.

  God help me, I kind of liked him already.

  They all got their drinks—which, again, I refused to pay for—and we slipped into easy banter. The kind that came from shared jobs, shared jokes, and just the right level of bar noise to muffle anything too embarrassing.

  Still, I kept gncing at Eric.

  There was something about him—cocky but composed, too banced in his seat, like someone who moved fast for a living. And his voice, it was hitting some memory I couldn’t quite shake. Not the face, though. That was new. Or maybe… just different without the goggles.

  He caught me looking.

  “I must be really good looking if I’ve got a lesbian checking me out this much,” he said with a crooked grin.

  I snorted. “Clocked me that fast, huh?”

  “If you were straight,” he said dryly, “I’d accuse you of appropriating lesbian culture.”

  That made me ugh—like, really ugh. The beer almost came out my nose. The guy had timing, I’ll give him that.

  “So,” he said a moment ter, tilting his head, “what happened to you? You look like you lost a fight with a garbage truck.”

  “Landed face-first getting parts,” I said, keeping it breezy.

  I felt Randy gnce at me. He knew damn well I hadn’t come back with any parts. Thankfully, he just sipped his drink and stayed out of it.

  Eric hummed thoughtfully. “Funny. I saw someone earlier who looked like that. Took one hell of a beating and still kept coming. Real stubborn type.”

  I looked at him. He was looking at me.

  No smile. Just that zy, casual confidence.

  “I mean,” he continued, “hard to tell who she was. Kinda messy. Whole lotta blood. But she hit like a freight train.”

  He took a sip from his gss. I took one from mine. Our eyes met again.

  And there it was.

  That flicker of knowing. Recognition passed silently between us like a file dropped across a desk. Neither of us flinched. Neither of us blinked. He knew. I knew he knew. He knew I knew he knew. And we both knew who he was too.

  But neither of us said it. Because there were rules. Unspoken, sacred ones.

  Instead, I just raised my brow slightly. A subtle so what? expression.

  He smirked. Just a little. Acknowledged.

  And that was it. No code names. No masks. No outing. Just a brief nod between ghosts who had seen each other without their sheets.

  Randy broke the silence. “So, Eric, what do you do?”

  Eric looked away from me, casually leaning back. “Freence work. A bit of urban pest control.”

  “Must pay decent,” Randy said.

  Eric grinned, not missing a beat. “Not enough to get unched through a building, but hey, I’ve had worse nights.”

  And me? I just drank my beer in silence. Because now I knew. And he knew. And I knew he knew I knew.

  Later, we split—Randy peeling off toward the train station, and me heading back home through the familiar tangle of city streets. Wish I could say I was drunk, that the buzz made everything a little fuzzier, a little easier to ignore. But unfortunately, my damn healing factor was a bit too efficient for that. By the time I was two blocks out, I was already sobering up. Ache in my ribs. Head still pounding from earlier. Blood dried stiff along my hairline.

  I kicked a loose bottle down the sidewalk and muttered, “Next time, I’m ordering whiskey and a brick to the head.”

  Halfway home, just as I was thinking about crawling into a bath hot enough to boil a lobster, I caught a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye. A quick, darting shape that cut across my peripheral like a shadow slipping past a curtain.

  I stopped.

  Nothing. Empty sidewalk. A flickering streetlight. The usual hum of te-night traffic a few blocks away.

  But…

  There—down the alley to my right. Was that a figure? Just past the dumpsters, half a silhouette, disappearing into the dark?

  “...Seriously?” I muttered to myself. “I swear if this is some vilin thinking I’m still on the clock…”

  I should’ve gone home. I wanted to go home. But something gnawed at the back of my skull. That flicker—it wasn’t random. It was purposeful. Fast. Light on its feet. Not some drunk stumbling through shadows.

  And okay, maybe the beer hadn’t done a damn thing, but adrenaline still tingled in my fingers. Couldn’t help it.

  So I turned and followed.

  The alley swallowed me in three steps. The light from the streetmp behind me shrank, then vanished. My boots were the only sound at first, crunching over broken gss and scattered gravel, until I caught it again—a blur of motion, low and fast, up ahead. A figure vaulting over a trash bin, their coat—no, cape?—fring out like a bat’s wings for a moment before they slipped around the corner.

  Who the hell was that?

  I moved faster, instincts kicking in. My joints protested, every bruise I’d earned today throwing in a compint, but I pushed through. Could’ve called out—but something about this didn’t feel like a fight. It felt like… a test. Or a dare.

  So I followed, deeper into the dark.

  The alley twisted, turned, narrowed—walls tightening like a throat. My breath clouded faintly in the cold, still night air as I crept forward. I didn’t run. No sudden moves. Whoever it was had the jump on me already, and if they were looking for a fight, I wasn’t dumb enough to walk into it blind.

  I rounded a final corner, stepping into a half-colpsed loading yard bathed in weak orange light from a busted security fixture. Chain-link fences bowed inward around the perimeter, rusting and tired. I slowed, eyes scanning.

  The alley spat me out behind a shuttered warehouse—one of those big ones, the kind that sits dead quiet all day and comes alive after sunset if you know where to look. I kept to the wall, breathing slow and quiet, squinting into the gloom. A rusted chain-link gate yawned open to my left, just wide enough to slip through without drawing attention.

  On the other side, a loading yard stretched out before me—gravel underfoot, a stack of old crates in one corner, and a few freight containers lined up like tombstones. The pce was dimly lit by a single busted floodlight, and in that flickering glow, I saw them.

  A group of figures—four, maybe five—clustered near one of the containers. Two of them were big, muscle-for-hire types. The third looked like a suit. The st two? Runners, maybe. Nervous energy in their posture. No uniforms, no branding. But the vibe screamed shady business.

  I crouched behind a stack of pallets near the fence, trying to get a better angle—then something shifted overhead.

  A soundless presence. Like the air itself pulled tighter.

  I looked up, heart catching in my throat.

  Perched casually on the edge of the roof, crouched like a gargoyle, was a figure in bck. Cloak draped low over narrow shoulders, hood shadowing their face. Barely visible, but somehow unmistakably there—like a smudge on your vision that you feel more than see.

  A sick little pit opened in my stomach as recognition clicked into pce.

  “…Shit,” I muttered, just under my breath.

  Umbra.

  Css C supervilin. Not the fshy type. No glowing eyes, no fshy tech. Just stealth, precision, and a talent for making people disappear. The kind of person you don’t even realize was in the room until your lights go out. And I had been following her through the dark like an absolute dumbass.

  She didn’t look down. Her focus was fixed on the group in the yard, one hand resting on her knee, still as a statue, a predator just waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

  I stayed frozen behind my cover. The smart move would’ve been to back out slow and quiet and pretend this never happened. But I didn’t move.

  Because Umbra wasn’t here for me.

  She was watching them.

  And now, so was I.

  Ugh. Stealth was not my strong suit. Never had been. My brand of heroism was more get the tar beaten out of me, then break someone’s face while they’re still catching their breath. But here I was, crouched behind a crate in a dirty loading yard, trying not to sneeze on whatever mold was growing back here.

  Down in the yard, the group was starting to circle up.

  “...So we have a deal then?” said the guy in the suit. His voice carried—calm, professional, like this was just another day for him. And, unfortunately, I recognized him now.

  Simon Caprici. Big guy. Not metas, not magic, just money and muscle and a talent for making problems vanish under a pile of bribes. Leader of the Caprici gang. The kind of asshole who probably had six offshore accounts and one poor mother.

  Fuuuuuuuck.

  That made this worse. Why the hell was Umbra interested in them?

  The smaller guy across from him twitched like he was vibrating out of his skin. Nervous energy in a trench coat. Pale, wiry, and... huh. Rat ears. He was Otherhuman. Kinda cute in a strung-out b tech way, if I wasn’t currently hiding in a dirt pile trying not to get murdered.

  “Y-yeah,” the mousey guy stammered. “We g-got the info. Golden Boy won’t b-b-be so golden if this gets out.”

  That got my attention. Golden Boy? As in the hero? The cape who did those cheesy public service ads and actually tried to py things by the book?

  Caprici nodded to one of his meatheads, who peeled off and strolled toward a sleek, midnight-blue luxury car idling just outside the yard. Polished chrome, tinted windows—subtle as a brick through a window. The guy popped the trunk and, of course, there it was. The money. In a suitcase. Probably full of unmarked bills or gold bars or some Bond vilin shit.

  Of course.

  I shifted slightly, trying to get a better angle—and immediately knocked a pebble loose.

  Clink.

  It bounced off the edge of the crate and hit the concrete with the softest little sound. Barely a whisper.

  But Simon froze.

  So did Rat-Ears.

  Even Umbra tensed, just a flicker of movement from her perch above.

  Shit.

  I held my breath, limbs locked in pce, every muscle tight.

  The moment passed.

  Simon narrowed his eyes, scanning the shadows. “...Yard rats,” he muttered finally, waving it off with a grunt. “Finish the deal. I’ve got other meetings tonight.”

  Rat-Ears handed over a data stick—sleek, bck, probably encrypted to hell. He took the suitcase in return, clutching it like he thought someone was gonna shoot him just for holding it.

  I stayed still, but my brain was racing. Something was going down. Golden Boy was being bckmailed, Umbra was interested enough to stalk this meeting, and if I was right—

  Umbra was moving.

  One second she was still, crouched like a gargoyle watching her prey; the next, she exploded off the rooftop like a cannonball wrapped in smoke and menace, a streak of bck and violet cutting through the air as she rocketed toward Simon.

  To their credit, the henchmen weren’t completely useless.

  One of them—some nky guy in a suit too tight for his broad, hunched frame—melted. No, literally melted. His whole body sloughed into a translucent, pale-blue gel, arms stretching unnaturally wide to throw himself in Umbra’s path without hesitation.

  Brave. Stupid. But brave.

  Didn’t matter though.

  Umbra was css C, and the Caprici boys? Barely organized crime.

  She didn’t so much strike him as pass through—her form bursting into bck smoke on contact, sailing through the getinous shield like it was fog. The blob man filed, trying to re-form as Umbra reappeared behind Simon with the eerie silence of a nightmare and kicked him square in the back with enough force to unch him forward—right into his own stretchy henchman, the two of them hitting the pavement in a tangled, squelching mess.

  The second thug moved immediately. His skin shimmered like liquid steel and hardened into solid metal, covering him from head to toe. A living statue. He lunged forward with a punch that could probably turn a sedan into a taco.

  Didn’t matter.

  Umbra didn’t even look at him.

  His blow whiffed past her as she pivoted like wind, and before he could recover, his shadow suddenly twisted up from the ground—snaking around his limbs like bck vines, dragging him to his knees. He struggled, muscles bulging, metal groaning, but the shadow didn't budge. It was like being caught in concrete ced with malice.

  And the ratman?

  He squeaked. Actually squeaked—high and panicked—and grabbed his suitcase, bolting toward the alley with his taller friend hot on his heels.

  But it was too te.

  Umbra just raised one hand, calm as death, and the shadows answered.

  They rippled and peeled themselves off the walls and crates, writhing like ink come alive—coalescing into long-limbed, vaguely human silhouettes with glowing, hollow eyes and no faces. They oozed into position, blocking the mouth of the alley before the two could even reach it.

  The ratman skidded to a stop so fast he nearly tripped. His friend smmed into him from behind, and they both stumbled back as the creatures advanced, slow and inevitable.

  I stayed put, breath shallow, heart hammering.

  This wasn’t some mugging. This wasn’t intimidation.

  This was surgical.

  The Caprici boys weren’t down for long.

  Well—two of them weren’t. Metal Man was still locked in pce, his steel-pted body straining against the shadow coiled around him like some kind of nightmare ivy. You don’t mess with conjurers. Not unless you’ve got something real special in your pocket.

  Unfortunately for Simon, he apparently thought he did.

  He pushed himself up from the sticky heap of his getinous crony, blood trickling from his temple, and pulled a gun from inside his jacket. But not just any gun—this thing was weird. Matte bck pting, no visible seams, no serials. Almost organic-looking. It definitely wasn’t standard issue, unless the standard now involved alien biotech or dark-magic Etsy commissions.

  He aimed it at Umbra’s back.

  I tensed, already half-ready to leap in like an idiot, even though I knew she didn’t need the help.

  He fired.

  The gun cracked—not like a regur shot, but more like a pulse, a low, gut-sickening thrum that vibrated through the air. The kind of sound that made your mors itch.

  But Umbra wasn’t hit.

  Because the second he pulled the trigger, she was behind him.

  One blink she was standing in the open, long coat whipping around her, shadows writhing at her feet. The next blink she was gone, and before anyone could say “what the fuck,” she was standing just over Simon’s shoulder, close enough to whisper in his ear.

  But I saw it. I saw it. She’d already moved before the trigger was even pulled.

  The Umbra Simon fired at had never even been real.

  A clone—woven out of smoke and shadow, standing stock-still just convincing enough to pass as the real deal until it mattered. The real Umbra had vanished seconds ago, slipping into the darkness like a ghost, only to reappear at the exact worst moment for her prey.

  Simon froze.

  Even from across the yard, I could feel the temperature drop.

  She leaned in, almost tender, and I saw his spine stiffen like a dog hearing a growl just behind its ears.

  Umbra whispered something I couldn’t hear.

  Simon dropped the gun.

  Smart man.

  Shaking like a leaf in a wind tunnel, Simon started patting himself down with trembling hands. His bravado had dissolved faster than his dignity. I watched him fumble through the inner pockets of that sleek mobster coat until he finally pulled it free—a slim little data stick, probably worth more than the car he’d rolled up in.

  He held it out behind him, not daring to turn.

  Umbra didn’t say a word. Just took it, smooth and silent, fingers brushing his in a way that made him flinch like she’d burned him.

  And then, without so much as a warning, she kicked him.

  Hard.

  Right in the spine.

  He let out a strangled yell as he went flying—again—crashing back into his getinous henchman with a wet schlorp like someone upending a bag of custard.

  Umbra flicked her head toward the street—imperious, dismissive.

  Like a queen deciding court was over.

  The shadows that had been looming around the perimeter twitched, then colpsed like smoke sucked back into a vent. Gone in an instant. With them gone, so was the st reason any of these guys had to stick around.

  The remaining Caprici boys scrambled.

  Even metal man, finally released, made a run for it—limping, disoriented, clutching his side.

  Umbra just stood there in the middle of it all. Still. Watching.

  Like a storm cloud that hadn’t quite passed yet.

  And me?

  I stayed hidden.

  Because I might’ve been many things—stupid, stubborn, too punch-happy for my own good—but even I knew better than to interrupt Umbra mid-theatrics.

  And now she was looking at me.

  Fuck.

  Okay. Okay. Think. I should act scared. I am scared. That part’s easy. That part’s established. What's also established is that I'm very, very good at pretending I'm not.

  The problem is that pretending I'm not scared is second nature at this point. And maybe that's not what I want to be doing right now. Maybe I want to look convincingly like some dumb, nosey civvie who stumbled into something she really shouldn’t have. Not someone who’s sizing up escape routes and watching the angle of her wrists in case she starts casting again.

  But she’s walking toward me.

  Straight toward me.

  Okay. New pn: look as scared as I actually feel while pretending I don’t want to bolt like a rabbit on fire. Which is, somehow, the opposite of what my body wants to do. Great. Fantastic. I love this.

  She stepped into the light. Tall. Graceful in that terrifying, coiled-spring kind of way. Her bodysuit absorbed the shadows like they belonged to her. And that mask—smooth, bck, no features, just a faint shimmer where the eyes might be. Completely unreadable. It made my skin crawl. And somehow, that was worse than if she’d had some supervilin grin painted on.

  “You shouldn’t be out so te, little girl,” she said.

  Her voice was low and smooth, but there was steel threaded through the silk. Like a bde tucked into a whisper.

  I swallowed, blinked twice, and forced out a weak ugh.

  “Y-yeah. Sorry. Just... got turned around. Trying to find the tram.” I let a little wobble into my voice. Not too much. Sell the fear, not the performance.

  She tilted her head slightly. Just a shift of weight, but it was enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. She was reading me. Measuring me.

  And I was definitely wondering if she’d step on me if I asked.

  Not the time, Ivy. Focus.

  “Then run along,” Umbra said, her voice calm and cold as gss. “The tram is in the opposite direction.”

  Oh shit.

  Was I going to avoid this fight?

  Holy crap.

  Hell yeah.

  I managed—just barely—not to let the relief flood my face. I’d been braced for a throwdown, and now here she was giving me the out. A polite dismissal. Like I was a leaf in the wind, not worth stepping on.

  And yeah, okay, part of me chafed at that. Being underestimated wasn’t great for the ego. But the bigger part—the one that liked having bones unshattered—was ready to kiss her vilin boots and take the win.

  Supervilins were a different breed. I could tangle with back-alley crooks and street-level goons just fine, but someone like Umbra? That was a whole new game. I’d seen the file on her. Shadow manipution, teleportation, illusions, crowd control, unconfirmed body count in the single digits but, like, barely. She was the kind of problem you called backup for. If backup still had a spine.

  So yeah, I’d take the exit.

  “Y-yup,” I said, nodding quickly and backing up a step, hands raised like a good little civilian. “Thanks. I’ll go do that right now.”

  She didn’t respond. Just stood there. Watching.

  The kind of watching that made you feel like she could see more than just your face—like she was watching the lies peel off your skin one yer at a time.

  I turned. Walked away at a pace that was definitely not a panicked power-walk. Nope. Just a normal girl, heading to the tram, minding her business, not thinking about how close she’d just come to having her lungs shadow-choked out through her back.

  Didn’t look over my shoulder until I was well past the alley.

  Didn’t breathe until I was two blocks away.

  And then I saw something interesting.

  Something very interesting.

  A sleek, matte-bck motorcycle parked half in shadow at the edge of the alleyway—familiar angles, familiar custom fittings, even the little scratch near the tailpipe I’d meant to buff out but hadn’t gotten around to yet.

  The bike I worked on earlier today.

  “Oh fu—”

  SupernovaSymphony