The bus rumbled on through the city streets.
How long has it been?
Ten minutes?
Twenty?
Catherine had lost track.
She’d been resting in the back row, eyes closed, when suddenly, her eyelids snapped open.
The sound hit her first.
Engines.
Multiple vehicles, idling in a wide perimeter.
They’d done their homework, her hunters.
They’d boxed the bus in with surgical precision, waiting for the right moment.
They hadn’t moved yet.
Too many civilians on board.
But Catherine knew her people, the real ones, and the ones who’d betrayed her.
Patience wasn’t their strong suit.
They’d make their move soon.
She turned her head, glancing at York.
Wanted to see if he’d noticed.
If he’d sensed the trap closing around them.
Instead, she found him dead asleep.
A soft, bitter laugh escaped her lips.
Of course.
The man hadn’t slept properly in two days, she’d watched him stumble through exhaustion like a drunkard.
But still.
A flicker of disappointment stirred in her chest.
So this was where it ended.
Her and a sleeping Husky.
What had she expected?
SCREECH!
The bus lurched violently as a vehicle cut them off, forcing the driver to slam the brakes.
York’s body catapulted forward, cracking against the seat in front of him before sliding down in a heap at Catherine’s feet.
“OW!
WHAT THE HE–?!” His drowsiness evaporated in an instant.
He blinked, seeing stars, and pushed himself upright with a groan.
A shake of his head cleared the fog just enough for him to see what was coming.
Two wolves had boarded the bus.
They moved with military precision, pistols raised, eyes sweeping the cabin.
In less than a second, their gazes locked onto the back row.
Onto him.
Onto Catherine.
The passengers barely had time to scream.
BANG!
BANG BANG!
Bullets tore through the air, shredding seats and window glass as they homed in on their targets.
“WHAT THE HELL?!” York hit the deck, scrambling behind the nearest seat.
He pressed himself flat, heart hammering, as rounds punched through the upholstery inches from his skull.
He could see the bullet holes, could count them, could measure the distance between his head and certain death.
He turned, breath ragged, and found Catherine crouched beside him.
Her face was calm.
Unnervingly so.
“Miss Catherine!” he hissed.
“Your men have lost it!
They’re shooting at you!” A cold smile curled her lips.
Her hand moved, and a pistol appeared as if from nowhere.
“Those aren’t my men,” she said, her voice like ice.
“Looks like some rats have crawled into my house.” The two wolves emptied their magazines in a sustained burst.
Then came the telltale click-click-click of empty chambers.
Catherine moved like a striking snake.
She rose, fired twice, BANG!
BANG!
and two screams answered her shots.
“Move!” She didn’t wait.
She turned, shot out the window beside York, and dove through the shattered glass.
York stared at the gaping hole.
Outside, chaos.
Shouts.
More gunfire.
Stay here and die.
His body made the decision before his brain did.
He scrambled toward the window, hands and knees scraping against broken glass.
“WAIT FOR ME!” Bullets chased him.
He felt the heat of them, the kiss of air displaced by supersonic lead.
His foot caught on the window frame and he pitched forward, face-planting onto the asphalt with a jarring thud.
His fried grasshoppers, the ones he’d been saving, scattered everywhere, little crispy insects skittering across the ground like tiny survivors.
Gunfire roared.
Passengers screamed.
York didn’t have time to think about Catherine or anything else.
He rolled, desperate, and wedged himself under the bus.
Underneath was cramped and filthy, but it was cover.
Solid steel above him.
Nobody would think to check down here.
He pressed his back against the cold ground, chest heaving, hands trembling.
His heart threatened to punch through his ribs.
A wave of nausea rolled through him, the belated realization that he’d almost died.
That he still might.
“What the hell is happening?!” He reached into his pocket with shaking fingers.
Two grasshoppers left.
Most had spilled across the pavement, lost to the chaos.
He shoved one into his mouth, chewing mechanically, forcing himself to breathe.
The crunch of fried insect grounded him.
Focused him.
His so-called intelligence, the one he liked to brag about, slowly started to claw its way back to the surface.
He could see a pair of black high heels moving through the battle outside.
They stepped with purpose, weaving between cover, accompanied by the rhythm of gunshots.
BANG-pause-BANG.
A deadly choreography.
‘Well,’ he thought, ‘I’ll just wait this out.
They’re not after me.’ He pulled out the last grasshopper.
And then Catherine rolled under the bus.
Their eyes met.
York froze, grasshopper halfway to his mouth.
He stared at her.
She stared at him.
His brain, running on adrenaline and fried insect, short-circuited entirely.
He held out the grasshopper.
“…Want one?” Catherine’s fierce expression flickered, then twisted into pure disgust.
“I don’t want your bugs.
Keep them.” “Oh.
Okay.” He popped the grasshopper into his mouth.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Catherine took a breath.
Steadied herself.
The kind of breath a woman takes before she does something very, very stupid.
“If you want to live,” she said flatly, “follow me.” And then she rolled out the other side.
York hesitated for exactly half a second.
It wasn’t a long hesitation.
In fact, it was the shortest hesitation of his life.
‘Screw it.’ He rolled after her.
Barely a heartbeat later, bullets stitched the ground where he’d been lying.
He scrambled to his feet, not daring to look back, and found Catherine already engaged with two wolves.
Hand-to-hand.
And she was winning.
She drove a kick into one wolf’s chest that sent him flying backward, ribs cracking audibly.
Before he’d even hit the ground, she’d grabbed the second wolf by the face, one hand splayed across his jaw, and slammed his head into a nearby car window.
The glass exploded inward.
The wolf went limp.
York stared, mouth hanging open.
‘She could have killed me a dozen times.’ The thought struck him like a brick.
‘Every time I mouthed off to her, every time I acted like an idiot, she could have done THAT to me.’ Nearby, another wolf raised his pistol, aiming at Catherine’s back.
York didn’t think.
He just moved.
He charged the wolf, closing the distance before the man could squeeze the trigger.
The wolf was so focused on Catherine he never saw York coming.
SMACK.
York slapped the gun hand aside, then drove his palm upward into the wolf’s chin.
It was a clumsy strike, but the wolf wasn’t expecting it.
His head snapped back.
The pistol clattered free.
He crumpled backward.
York grabbed the fallen weapon, spinning to face two more wolves rushing in.
BANG!
BANG!
One shot missed entirely.
The other caught a wolf in the thigh, sending him down with a scream.
The remaining wolf dove behind a car.
York pulled the trigger again.
Click.
Empty.
“Damn it!” He hurled the pistol like a rock.
It spun end over end, right at the hiding wolf’s face.
The man peeked out at exactly the wrong moment.
THWACK!
direct hit.
Catherine’s eyes flicked toward him for just a second, a flicker of something like approval, then she raised her pistol and fired twice more.
Two clean headshots.
The downed wolves stopped moving.
“Let’s go.” She didn’t elaborate.
She picked a car that still looked drivable, slid into the driver’s seat, and had the engine roaring before York could blink.
The tires were already spinning as he scrambled in, barely making it through the door before she floored the accelerator.
They tore out of the kill zone, engine screaming.
York didn’t have time to celebrate before gunfire erupted behind them.
Bullets punched through the rear window, spraying glass across the back seat.
York ducked, covering his head.
Catherine swore under her breath and wrenched the wheel.
The car fishtailed, tires howling, and shot sideways into oncoming traffic.
She was driving against the flow now, weaving between cars with terrifying precision, the world blurring past in streaks of metal and concrete.
York clung to his seat like his life depended on it.