Just a Game of House
On the monitors, Sage's car rolled back into frame. He drove straight into the mob, trying to reach the east gate.
The crowd engulfed him. Tools smashed through windows. Hands dragged him out through shattered glass.
His body hit the ground. He staggered up, swinging a wrench, bleeding from everywhere.
A steel pipe smashed into his face. His nose shattered. He kept crawling toward Cassian Vance's position. "Brother... I don't want to die... brother..."
Another pipe. His eye socket caved in.
Cassian Vance's car tore into the frame. He leapt out, alone, into the horde. A flying knee shattered the nearest attacker's jaw. The crowd recoiled.
But Sage was already surrounded. A pipe slammed him again. He fell, vomiting, then dragged himself upright once more, swinging the wrench without aim, his cries weakening.
Something fell from inside Sage's shirt.
Juniper screamed. "His... his intestines..."
"Shut up!" Nolan Kane roared. "Do you want them to find us?"
Sage collapsed.
Cassian Vance reached him. Gathered him in his arms. The crowd, momentarily stunned, held back.
Then Cassian Vance rose—wrench in one hand, Sage's body over his shoulder—and carved a path through the mob. Pure fury. No hesitation. He dragged Sage to the car, shoved him inside.
Behind him, a figure lunged. Victor Kane—the influencer I'd personally captured—knife aimed at Cassian Vance's back.
Cassian Vance couldn't turn. The blade sank into his abdomen.
White shirt blooming red.
Victor Kane sneered: "You and that bitch who caught me, playing hero! This is what you get!"
Cassian Vance gripped the knife handle and pulled it out. Blood sprayed.
Then he grabbed Victor Kane by the hair and drove the blade into his neck. Once. Twice. Five times. Ten. Victor Kane stopped moving after the third.
Cassian Vance leaned against the car, panting. Carefully, deliberately, he reinserted the knife into his own wound—to hold the bleeding—and looked up at the security camera.
His blood-covered fingers pressed to his lips. A kiss, aimed straight at the lens.
At me.
Even now. Even dying. He was flirting with me.
On the monitors, his car pulled away from the crowd, heading toward our bunker.
I couldn't breathe.
---
The bunker door scraped open. Cassian Vance tumbled down the steps, caught himself on the wall. Sage wasn't moving in his arms.
"Sage is dead," he said flatly.
I held him up, guided him to the floor. "Tell me about him later. When we're safe."
"I want to cry. But right now, I need to keep you safe."
Juniper worked on his wound with trembling hands. No surgical skills—just antiseptic, needle, thread. We all understood the odds. Blade to the abdomen. Either it missed the organs, or it didn't. None of us could do anything about it either way.
I wiped the blood from his skin while she stitched. On the monitors, smoke still rose. The The Badlands we'd built—burning.
"Turn it off," I said. "We've lost. Think about escape."
Silence settled over the bunker. Just breathing.
Nolan Kane broke it. "No boats. No life rafts. We're trapped. Might as well surrender—I never killed anyone. Just funded it. Few years, maybe."
Juniper said, "Maybe we can still escape."
"Escaped how? There's nothing to sail on!"
She opened her bag. Folded inside: an inflatable kayak. Battery-powered pump. Two small paddles.
"My dream was a beach house with Valerian," she said softly. "Fishing, barbecues, him playing guitar by a campfire. I bought this for that dream."
Nolan Kane stared. "A fishing kayak? We'll capsize the moment—"
"It's not for you! Who even are you, always making everything worse!"
He shut up.
Juniper's voice trembled. "It's so small... only fits two. I brought it hoping we'd never use it. Valerian, give her your bag—the food and water."
Valerian opened his pack. Canned goods. Bottled water. He'd packed exactly what she'd asked.
Juniper wiped her eyes. "You called me first, sister. That means... the friendship was real." She sobbed. "I'm sorry I only bought a small one. I wanted to sit close to Valerian. Why didn't I buy a bigger one..."
I pulled her into my arms. She held on tight, shaking.
"Come here, Valerian." I kissed his forehead too.
He wiped his eyes and grabbed both of us. "I never protected anyone in my whole life. If I protect you this one time... then my life meant something."
I couldn't stop crying. Strange—we had nothing, were trapped, probably going to die. But I felt, in that dark bunker, a kind of happiness I couldn't name.
Juniper dipped her finger in Cassian Vance's blood and wrote an email address on a gauze pad. "Write me when you're safe. When I get out—we'll find each other."
Valerian tried to write his too. Cassian Vance slapped his hand away. "Off."
"Okay."
I memorized the address. Said it over and over so I wouldn't forget.
Juniper forced a smile. "I'm twenty-two. I'll still be young when I get out. Valerian and I will have a baby—you can be the godmother."
"Confess everything," I told her. "Tell them whatever they ask. Make deals. Three to five years, you'll be out."
"Don't worry about us, sister."
We waited until full dark.