We drove out of Akira’s property as calling it a house would’ve been too generous after what happened and onto the main road, following the scent trail toward the nearby highway. It didn’t take long to notice how different Nick’s riding style was from Shiroi’s. He was measured and deliberate. Too calm, as if unaware that the throttle had another half to it. He rode like we were still just human, careful and restrained, the way I used to when I first learned and still feared breaking my own bones.

  “Can we go a little faster!?” I shouted through the roar of the wind as we weaved between cars.

  “Are you serious!?” he yelled back.

  “Yes! I’m one hundred percent sure a fall from this won’t kill us, right? We could probably jump before we hit anything with the reflexes Authority grants us! So… could you kindly check how fast this thing can actually go!?”

  I was already thinking how much I wanted one of these machines for myself, so sleek and raw, almost alive. Small enough to teleport to Ideworld, too. I could turn it into an art piece, a statement of motion and freedom. Maybe even craft a self-replenishing fuel cell from that Old Oak bark, the kind that refills itself like a heartbeat. Victor would hopefully help me with that.

  Nick finally shifted gears, and the bike roared in gratitude. The world blurred instantly, streaks of color and light melting together as I surrendered to the speed and pressed closer against his back.

  I tried to focus on Malik’s scent, pushing away the one that clung to Nick. Something warm and clean that stirred feelings I had no time to indulge. It was clear now that he could be more than just a friend if I allowed it, and unlike Jason… this time, I actually might have wanted that. But I wasn’t a slave to my impulses. I wouldn’t create another mess. So I let those thoughts dissolve into the rush of wind and the hum of the engine, narrowing my senses back to Malik’s fading trail.

  “Do you feel the same thing I do?” Nick asked suddenly. His voice startled me and I blushed, grateful he couldn’t see it.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The scent. It was stationary for a while, but now both of them are moving. Fast. Harder to track through all this city stench, but I’m sure it’s them.”

  “Oh. That,” I said, masking my relief. “No, my nose isn’t as good as yours apparently.”

  He didn’t respond, just leaned forward, guiding the bike through the traffic that grew thicker as the skyline closed around us. The air turned heavy with exhaust and noise.

  Then, suddenly, a car swerved into our lane.

  Nick reacted instantly. The bike tilted, skidding into a tight, impossibly clean dodge as the car’s bumper missed us by inches. My heart leapt into my throat.

  “Close one!” I shouted over the wind.

  “Yes we’re close now!” he yelled back, his voice a mix of focus and excitement. “Just around two miles ahead!”

  Two miles. That was all that separated us from Malik and whatever madness he had decided to chase.

  I wondered, fleetingly, how the hell Damien was keeping up with us.

  We turned a corner and hurtled toward a wide intersection, the traffic light burning red ahead of us like a warning flare. I felt the hesitation ripple through Nick’s body, that split second where instinct wrestled with reason, before he shouted over the wind,

  “Do we run it or stop!?”

  The cross-traffic was brutal, cars slicing past in thick streams of motion. No way we’d make it through, not the normal way, at least. But on the far side, our lane was open and clear.

  “Keep going and don’t stop for anything!” I yelled back, already searching for an escape route. My eyes locked on a graffiti mural splashed across a wall by a storefront on the other side of the street. If I could just get within range of it—

  Pedestrians. Too many of them. A tide of moving bodies filled the sidewalk, killing my first plan before it even started.

  “Alexa, we’re very close! Are you going to do something or what?!” Nick’s voice cracked through the chaos as we closed in on the intersection.

  It wouldn’t work as I’d hoped. Not without hurting people.

  “Brace yourself!” I shouted instead. My arm clamped tightly around his chest as I thrust my other hand downward, channeling my Authority, one part into the reactor painted on my sleeve, another into the swirling rotor art glowing in my palm.

  The street erupted beneath us.

  “Fuuuuuuuuck!” Nick screamed as the bike and both of us launched upward, catapulted clean over the streaming traffic. Wind slammed into us, the world tilting sideways as horns blared below.

  For a dizzy instant we hung in the air, suspended above the city, every eye below locked on our impossible leap. Then gravity reclaimed us.

  I triggered the rotor again, softer this time, to slow the descent. The bike hit asphalt hard, shocks screaming, tires skidding for purchase. Somehow, impossibly, we stuck the landing, a heavy, perfect thump echoing under us.

  Behind us, sirens burst to life, flashing blue in the mirrors. One of the patrol cars broke from the jam we’d just vaulted and started after us, howling in pursuit.

  “Great job!” Nick shouted over the engine, and I couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or genuine awe.

  I chose to take it as a compliment, because we were still moving.

  My own bike, when I finally made one, would be different. Painted in my Authority, reinforced with power armor elements or nano-machines and rotors like the ones I’d just used, built for sharp turns, sudden leaps and impossible escapes.

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  Behind us, the siren howled again, a wounded beast of blue and white light. The patrol car cut through traffic like a shark, the flash of its lights painting the street in stuttering rhythm. If we wanted to reach Malik before anything worse happened, we couldn’t afford a tail.

  I reached into my Domain, guided by the sketches in my spellbook, and summoned Noxy. The weapon materialized in my palm, light and strange in its new, alien shape. Its single eye blinked open then, glimmering with awareness, darting about to take in the world. Unluckily it wasn’t the time to ask questions.

  I leaned forward, searching Nick’s jacket for a place to stash it.

  “Why are you groping me right now!?” he shouted, twisting slightly as I slipped the weapon into his pocket.

  “Shut up!” I yelled back over the wind.

  “What’s going on!?”

  Before he could react, I planted my feet against the seat, crouching low on the moving bike. The tires screamed against the asphalt as I pushed off, vaulting backward into the air. For a heartbeat, I was weightless, then the road rushed up to meet me.

  I landed hard, boots skidding, just as the patrol car closed the distance. I saw the driver’s eyes widen through the windshield, panic flickering as he yanked the wheel and slammed the brakes. The siren wailed its protest.

  He might’ve stopped in time. Maybe.

  I raised my hand and gave them a small, lazy salute, smiling with my eyes and then focused on Noxy.

  The air folded in on itself, and the world bent around me.

  I vanished in a blink, pulled back toward the weapon’s location, landing behind Nickolas.

  He felt the weight shift, as he stirred in his seat.

  “You should have told me what you are planning!” He shouted as he turned to another street, disappearing from the police car’s view.

  “You are right.” I said not wanting to get into further discussion about the topic.

  We steered into a narrower street now, and I had to admit, ever since I told him to drive more freely, Nick really did. He moved with measured recklessness, gliding between sidewalk and street with an almost feral precision. The scent led us straight to a black sedan. Malik’s scent was thick around it, undeniable.

  As soon as we came into view, the car ahead jerked between lanes, trying in vain to lose us. Nick was relentless.

  “You hear that?” I asked, but I knew he didn’t.

  A wild chorus split the air, sharp guitar chords roaring to life.

  “Turn! Turn now!” I shouted, pressing myself against him, forcing our weight to the left.

  The asphalt behind us exploded in a hiss of molten tar as lightning struck the very spot we’d just occupied.

  “Again, now!” I yelled, and Nick obeyed without hesitation, veering down another side street.

  My ears caught it then, the music thundering from the car ahead. “Thunderstruck.” AC/DC.

  Thunder!

  The word echoed through the air, and another bolt ripped through the clouds, missing us by inches. Each time the chorus hit, the world itself seemed to answer. Lightning drawn by rhythm, by will, by Authority.

  Robbie Reyes was inside that car and was syncing the storm to the song.

  Thunder!

  A deafening crack and the pavement to our left vaporized into dust and steam.

  I scanned ahead, eyes locking on a graffiti mural at the far end of the street. No pedestrians now. Perfect!

  I reached out confirming within my soul that it was an art, sending my authority through the link. Space twisted, and for an instant the world turned inside out—

  —we burst from the painted wall, back into reality.

  Nick, though startled, never lost control. His hands were steady, his instincts certain. For a moment, it didn’t matter where in the city we’d landed, only that we were still moving.

  Then the music stopped.

  Silence fell upon us. Sharp and heavy.

  The black sedan now behind us detonated, a flash of light and shrapnel ripping through the air. The shockwave tossed bodies like dolls. Rhythm and Malik flung in opposite directions. Another man, the prisoner from the basement, hit the ground hard, rolling across the asphalt. A fourth body followed, probably the driver.

  Nick decelerated, turning sharply just as the explosion unfolded before our eyes. It all happened so fast.

  It was Malik’s doing.

  As soon as he hit the ground, he sprang back to his feet, charging toward his brother who lay sprawled in the middle of the street. Cars screeched to a stop around them, horns blaring, people shouting in panic and disbelief. Malik reached Rhythm in three furious strides, yanked him up by the collar, and drove his fist straight into his brother’s face.

  For a heartbeat, nothing moved.

  Then the air shimmered, gold and violet ripples spreading through reality’s fabric like cracks in glass. They replayed the moment—the punch—amplified and brutal.

  The sound that followed was unmistakable.

  A neck breaking.

  Rhythm’s body was thrown back, the street flashing with light before the entire world seemed to fall silent.

  Nick guided the bike forward through halted traffic, weaving past the chaos, but people were spilling from their cars now, phones raised, blocking our path. We shouted at them to move but no one listened.

  And then music again.

  Not the AC/DC this time.

  I’m Still Standing. Elton John.

  The melody blossomed into the air like some radiant contagion, and the same gold-and-purple shimmer wrapped around all three of them—Rhythm, and the two men nearby. Even Robbie’s twisted neck began to realign with a sickening crack. He rose from the pavement laughing, a high, wild, almost joyful sound.

  “You told me you were the good guy!” Malik screamed, his voice cutting through the music.

  “We are! But they’re not!” Rhythm shouted back, pointing straight at us. “You should’ve let me kill them!”

  “Never!” Malik roared, throwing a punch into the air and just a breath later, its echo followed. But instead of striking Rhythm, it collided with something unseen, an invisible wall pulsing in time with the beat.

  The shockwave threw Malik off his feet.

  “Faster!” I shouted to Nick. He’d frozen, entranced by the surreal chaos and truthfully, so had I. We abandoned the bike; Nick shoved it aside, and we began leaping from car to car, to the dismay of their owners.

  Rhythm didn’t stop.

  Each pounding note of the song became a weapon.

  Every beat hurled invisible force at Malik, hammering him again and again, driving him into the ground like the rhythm itself was trying to bury him alive.

  Meanwhile, the man from the basement and the driver scrambled away, dragging themselves toward a side street, vanishing into the city’s veins.

  Rhythm struck again and again, until he suddenly stopped, staring at his own bloodied hands.

  “No…” he whispered, trembling. “Look what you made me do!” His voice cracked, ragged with grief and fury. “You’re a broken record, Malik! Be good, be good, that’s all you ever said, as if I wasn’t fucking trying!”

  He turned, frantic, eyes darting to the crowd filming, to us approaching. Then, with a shuddering breath, he ran, bolting into the maze of backstreets, golden light trailing off him like falling embers.

  Nick’s voice hit me like a blow.

  “Oh no… Alexa, look at his head.”

  I looked.

  Malik’s skull was shattered, a dent where his temple should have been, blood pooling fast, brain matter glistening on the asphalt. His breath came in shallow, broken gasps.

  “I’m going to kill him!” Nick shouted, voice shaking with rage. “I’ll kill that bastard!”

  He sprinted, but I jumped off after him.

  “Don’t!” I called. “He’ll kill you too! We’ll get him later, but help me now! Malik can still be saved!”

  He hesitated and that was enough. He turned back, running beside me.

  We reached Malik’s broken body. His face was barely recognizable, skull fractured, his chest fluttering weakly against the pavement.

  I dropped to my knees, pressing my hand against his chest, taking him and Nick into my domain in an instant.

  “Nick, stop the bleeding!”

  “How!? It’s his head, his brain’s destroyed!”

  “Just do something! Press it, cover it, anything!” I shouted, my voice cracking with panic and tears.

  I stretched my will outward, reaching into to my bedroom, to the object I’d left waiting there. I caught it in my aura, bridging the space.

  Please, I begged the thing silently, stop being mine… and become his instead.

  Become Malik’s brain.