First message
The smell hit first.
Blood.
Everything sharpened at once. Sound dropped out. The world narrowed to one point and she was already moving before the street had time to settle into silence.
He was still alive.
Young. Curled slightly forward, one hand pressed to his stomach. Too much damage. Too much blood.
He let out a weak, breathless laugh.
“Are you an angel?” his voice dragged, barely holding together. “No—God, Drake, that sounds like a terrible line. Wait—”
He laughed again. Wrong moment. Wrong body. Blood slipped from the corner of his mouth as his eyes started to roll back.
She crouched in front of him, quiet, assessing.
Liver. Kidney. Internal bleeding. Minutes, maybe less.
He was dying.
And he was joking.
“God, what an idiot,” she said under her breath, already leaning in to finish it cleanly.
He smiled.
Actually smiled.
Something in her stalled.
Annoying.
She exhaled slowly, then bit into her own wrist. Blood welled, dark and alive. She pressed it to his lips.
One minute.
Then—
crack.
The neck shifted sharply as the body reset.
She didn’t wait.
Lifting him over her shoulder, she disappeared before the city had time to notice what it had almost lost.