Part 2: Hands in the Dark
Summary:
The shadows have been circling for days, and Riven's instincts scream louder than logic. He sets a trap to see if anyone is truly following. What he finds confirms what he feared: someone is watching. Someone who doesn't care if he's ready. Or armed. Or awake.
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The rooftop near the harbor had three exits.
Two were fire escapes.
One was a locked steel hatch leading into the stairwell of the condemned building below.
Riven cleared the trash, found a flat patch of gravel and steel, and waited.
He didn't know what he was waiting for.
Only that it was time.
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He kept his back to the wind, sat against a vent shaft, and held his breath long enough to hear the silence move.
It was like being underwater — all pressure and warping distance.
The noise of the city was out there. Cars. Boats. Music.
But it all sounded muted now.
As if something had wrapped this corner of the city in gauze.
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Footsteps didn't come.
But something did.
A flicker — fast, silent — near the edge of the rooftop's shadow line.
Then gone.
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Riven didn't move.
Didn't even blink.
He'd been stalked before.
On the job. On bad nights. In worse neighborhoods.
But this wasn't a mugging.
This wasn't a junkie looking for a wallet.
This was positioning.
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A whisper of gravel to his left.
He snapped his eyes toward it — too late.
A hand grabbed his collar from behind and slammed him down hard into the gravel.
The impact rang in his teeth.
He rolled, kicked up — connected with something solid — and heard a grunt.
Boots scraped. A knee hit his ribs.
He twisted, shoved, used the body's momentum, and broke the hold.
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Whoever the attacker was — they didn't speak.
Didn't shout.
Just circled again, fast.
Military movement.
Clean.
Too clean.
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Riven backed up, fists up.
He didn't think. Just breathed. Watched the eyes. The shoulder line. The stance.
The man stepped forward again — hands raised.
Not in surrender. In calculation.
A glint on the wrist — metal, flat, needle-tip.
Not a knife.
A syringe.
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Riven lunged before he could think.
Tackled the guy low — a dirty cop tackle, full-body drive — they both hit the steel roof.
The syringe clattered out of reach.
The man grabbed at his side.
Riven got one punch in.
Then two.
The third didn't land.
The man twisted, broke free, and threw a flash grenade from his belt.
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White.
Soundless white.
His ears screamed.
His vision went sideways.
He hit the ground.
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When his sight returned, the man was gone.
And so was the syringe.
Only thing left was a smear of blood on the metal and two black bootprints in the gravel.
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Riven sat there for a long time.
Palms shaking.
Breath tight.
Not from pain.
From the realization.
> They weren't watching anymore.
They were coming to collect.
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