Toussaint was already running when Ives spoke.

  “Target cut east. Service levels,” she said, her voice smooth and unhurried. There was a faint hiss beneath it, like air moving through a narrow space.

  He vaulted a waist-high barrier without slowing, boots striking metal and concrete in quick succession. The city blurred around him; industrial corridors, hanging cables, emergency lights that flickered more than they shone.

  “Crowd density increasing,” Ives added. “You’re about to lose him if he hits the lower market.”

  “I see him,” Toussaint said.

  The man ahead glanced back once. Just long enough. Fear sharpened his movements, made them sloppy. He clipped a shoulder against a wall and cursed, nearly losing his footing as he disappeared down a stairwell.

  Toussaint followed.

  The stairs were narrow, slick with rainwater. The man fired blindly upward, shots cracking loud in the enclosed space. Toussaint took them in stride, adjusting his angle, keeping the distance steady.

  A shot took Toussaint off his feet.

  There was no warning this time. Just impact and weight as the world tipped sideways and he hit the landing hard, breath tearing out of him. His shoulder struck metal. His head rang.

  Blood came fast.

  He stayed down.

  Footsteps scrambled below, growing distant. The man didn’t look back this time.

  “That was careless,” Ives said quietly. Something tapped on her end of the line. “You’re losing pressure.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Toussaint didn’t answer.

  He let the stairwell fill with silence.

  The man didn’t stop running until the streets thinned out.

  He ducked through a half-collapsed service building and slammed the door behind him, bracing it with his weight. For a long moment, he stood there shaking, gun still raised, listening for footsteps that never came.

  He laughed once. Short. Disbelieving.

  “Idiot,” he muttered.

  He slid down the wall and sat there, chest heaving, convinced he was alone.

  Toussaint stepped out of the dark.

  “You shouldn’t stop just because it gets quiet,” he said.

  The man screamed.

  He scrambled backward, staring at Toussaint’s chest, at the blood-dark jacket, at the fact that there was no wound beneath it anymore.

  “That’s not…” His voice cracked. “That’s not possible.”

  Toussaint tilted his head slightly. “People say that a lot. You carrying it, or not?”

  The man laughed, high and hysterical. “You think I had it? You think I’d be here if I did?”

  Toussaint disarmed him quickly. The fight drained out of the man as fast as it had come.

  He searched him anyway.

  The flower came out of the man’s coat pocket wrapped in oilcloth. Red, but wrong. The petals were stiff, brittle at the edges.

  Toussaint didn’t have to touch it to know.

  “Fake,” Ives said after a glance through his camera feed. Smoke threaded her words. “Low-grade craftsmanship.”

  The man swallowed. “Look… I can pay. Credits, now. You walk away, no one has to…”

  Toussaint took the money.

  The man froze. Hope flickered, brief and stupid.

  “Where’d you hear about the real ones?” Toussaint asked.

  The man laughed again, thinner this time. “Same place everyone does. Someone whispers. Someone else lies.”

  That was answer enough.

  Toussaint wiped blood from his hand, already feeling the last of the pain fade.

  “Next one?” Toussaint asked.

  There was a pause. Just long enough to mean something.

  “Soon,” Ives said. “Get clear first. You’re drawing attention.”

  Toussaint turned away, melting back into the corridors. The jacket would need stitching. The rumors would keep spreading.