The sun crawled up dirty and slow over the city, all rust and haze. By the time it hit the broken windows of Tariq’s body shop, Malik was awake.
He sat up too fast, wincing. His shirt stuck to him, crusted red. “Where’s my phone?”
Tariq didn’t even look up from the corner where he was packing ammo into a duffel. “You’re welcome for not dying.”
Malik ignored the jab. “Where’s my phone?”
“Gone,” Tariq said. “Smashed it. You were bleeding and they were tracking you.”
Malik’s expression turned mean. “You had no right.”
“You had no pulse for three minutes,” Tariq shot back. “Figure it evens out.”
Nia stood between them, exhaustion written in her face. “Can we not do this before coffee?”
They both looked at her—one with guilt, one with something harder to read.
Tariq handed her a thermos. “Drink. We leave tonight.”
Malik frowned. “Leave where?”
“Somewhere Cas won’t look,” Tariq said. “You’ll stay put until I sort the mess.”
Malik laughed, ugly and hollow. “You? Sort my mess? Last time you ‘sorted’ something we buried a man.”
That stopped Tariq cold. Nia saw his jaw clench before he turned away.
Malik smiled, satisfied. “Exactly.”
She’d never seen two men share that much history in one glance—loyalty, hatred, grief all welded together.
Around noon, she stepped outside to breathe. The air smelled like burnt metal and damp concrete.
She could still hear Malik’s voice inside the shop, low and hoarse, talking to himself. She should’ve been afraid. Instead, she felt hollow.
Tariq joined her. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
“Too late for shouldn’ts.”
He studied her face. “You still love him.”
She nodded once. “But I don’t like what that means anymore.”
He leaned against the wall beside her. “You ever think love’s just possession with better lighting?”
“Yeah,” she said. “And heartbreak’s the receipt.”
They stood in silence, two tired people running from one man who wouldn’t die and another who wouldn’t forgive.
That night, Tariq loaded the car again. Malik insisted on coming.
“I’m not sitting around waiting to be hunted,” he said.
“You’re still bleeding,” Nia said.
“Then I’ll bleed in motion.”
Tariq glared. “You’ll get us both killed.”
Malik smirked. “You’ve been waiting on that chance.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
Nia stepped between them again, palms up. “Stop! You sound like you want Cas to find us.”
“Maybe I do,” Malik muttered.
They all went quiet at that.
They drove through the night, the car heavy with secrets. Somewhere near Valdosta, Malik started humming under his breath—an old tune that used to make Nia melt.
Now it just sounded like foreshadowing.
When Tariq pulled off at an abandoned motel to rest, Nia followed Malik out of the car. The moon painted his face silver and weary.
“You’re not the same man I met,” she said quietly.
He lit a cigarette. “You mean the man who told you he could change?”
She nodded.
He exhaled smoke and laughter. “Yeah. He died somewhere between debt and desire.”
Her voice cracked. “Then what’s left?”
He looked at her like a confession. “A man who still loves you enough to burn everything down before letting you walk away.”
Later, in the room next door, Tariq couldn’t sleep. He cleaned his gun, checked the window, and saw their silhouettes through the thin curtain.
Close. Too close.
He set the gun down and looked at the tattoo on his wrist—three black lines. The mark all the Bryant men got when they swore loyalty to family. Blood before all.
It pulsed under his skin like a curse.
By dawn, Malik was gone.
So was the duffel.
On the bed, where he’d been lying, sat one item: Nia’s necklace, the gold one he’d bought her the week he first said I love you.
And written in grease on the cracked mirror:
“Don’t follow me. I’ll bring the war to him.”
Tariq stared at it, jaw locked. “He’s gonna get himself killed.”
Nia’s voice trembled. “Or all of us.”