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By noon, the course felt like it had rewritten its opinion of Sylas Parker.
He'd spent the entire morning doing what he always did best: watching, learning, and letting his body translate instruction into muscle memory.
Missy would nudge his stance or whisper "head still," and the ball would leap off the clubface like it had just remembered it was supposed to fly.
"Okay," she said after his third pure strike in a row. "That's enough showing off."
"Me?" He flashed an innocent smile, then, while she ducked into the clubhouse restroom, nudged a second ball into place, took a breath, and clipped it on a laser line.
It tracked the pin, landed, rolled, and disappeared.
"Hole-in-one!" someone on the path behind him gasped.
Sylas tugged his cap lower. "Total luck," he called back, then palmed the spare ball and made a show of chunking the next one into the rough.
At lunch, they split a steak and traded barbs about swing planes and bunker trauma. Missy stabbed at a roasted carrot, eyes glittering.
"You're dangerously good at this," she said. "Ever think about… y'know, actually trying?"
He cut a bite, shrugged. "I like the part where the ball goes where I want. I don't love the part where I have to pretend I care about member brunches."
"So no tour?" she pressed, grinning.
"Zero per cent." He tipped his water at her. "Besides, I'd rather win one match that actually matters."
"Against?" she asked, pretending she didn't already know.
"Your dad," he said, and she laughed so loudly the server smiled from across the room.
Sirens sliced past the restaurant windows. One cruiser, then another, then a third leaned on the horn and barreled through a light.
Midtown did that sometimes convulsed, then pretended nothing happened.
Missy's smile faded. She pressed her cheek into her knuckles, watching blue strobes wash across the glass. "Guess it's one of those days again."
"Isn't it always?" Sylas said lightly. "Clinton's probably on its third car chase by now."
"True," she sighed, and then, because she refused to give the city all of her joy, clapped her hands once. "Okay. Eat. We've got one more stop."
"Right," he said, and finished his plate, already hearing something he hadn't told her yet a tremor at the edge of sound, a ripple of frantic voices bouncing off brick canyons where they didn't belong.
They walked after lunch. No drivers, no doors held open, no suits tied to the corner like punctuation.
Just two teenagers in sneakers letting a sunlit block undo their meal.
"Why aren't we calling the car?" he asked, half to tease, half to check how fast he could pivot if things went wrong.
"Because I like to walk," she said, bumping her shoulder into his. "And because the place I'm taking you is mine. Not my family's."
He nodded. "Sold."
The ripple sharpened a chorus of shouts, the sharp bark of a gunshot from far enough away to be its own weather. Sylas's head tilted, listening past the world.
Trouble, Closer than it sounds.
"Hey," he said, too casual. "I'm suddenly very thirsty. Walk with me to grab a drink?"
Missy glanced at his hand as it closed around her wrist, surprised but not alarmed. He snatched it back and forced a sheepish smile. "Sorry."
"It's fine," she said, reading something in his eyes and trusting it anyway. "Sure. Drinks."
He cut left at the next corner and then again, threading them into a parallel street a block off the noise.
He'd just set them on the new line when a red-and-blue streak swung across the sky at the far end of the avenue a boy-shaped comet on a line of bright silver.
Missy stopped dead. "Is that—"
"Yup," Sylas said, letting himself grin. "No idea how he does it."
"Is he—he's flying," she said, hand over her mouth, equal parts terror and delight.
"Something like that." And he didn't see me, Good.
They hustled toward a bus stop, where a city bus hissed up to the curb with a sigh.
The interior hummed with that particular Saturday energy: kids pressed against the back window, an old man guarding a paper bag like it contained his entire history, a college girl staring glassily at a midterm that had already forgotten her.
Only one seat left.
"Go on," Sylas said. "Lady's choice."
Missy rolled her eyes but took it, tucking her bag under her knees. He wrapped a hand around the pole and watched the city slide by.
The bus smelled like air freshener and old rain and the comfort of predictable routes.
The comfort lasted two stops.
The overhead speaker crackled. "Attention, citizens: reports of an active shooter in Queens. Please avoid the Roosevelt corridor until further—"
Every head popped up at once. Anxious chatter swelled. The driver immediately eased off the throttle and checked his mirrors.
"Please remain calm," he said into his little plastic mic. "We're diverting."
Sylas took a breath, then another. The ripple had a source now a direction.
The man in the black cap moved first.
At first glance he was just part of the crowd: cap pulled low, backpack slung tight, a jaw that twitched when the bus hit a pothole.
He stepped forward down the aisle as if to ask a question and didn't stop until he stood at the driver's elbow.
"Sir," the driver said evenly, eyes on the road. "You'll need to head back and hold a rail. Roads might get rough."
The man in the cap slid a pistol from his jacket pocket and pressed it to the driver's temple. "Drive into it."
The bus went silent in a single heartbeat.
The driver's hands clenched on the wheel. "There's a police cordon ahead."
"Then you'll be the exception," the man said. His voice was quiet, ironed flat. "Turn right at the light. You'll know where."
Gasps sizzled up the aisle. Someone started to stand; someone else yanked them back down. Sylas didn't move.
Neither did Missy, though her knuckles had gone white where they clutched the seat in front of her.
"Listen to him," Sylas said softly to the driver, so low only the closest rows could hear. The quick flick of the man's eyes told him he'd scored a point: I see the problem. I'll help you live through it.
The bus rolled into a new lane.
"Bags," the gunman said, and tossed a crumpled black sack onto the lap of the first passenger. "Wallets. Phones. Jewelry. Front to back."
The sack sat there, untouched. The passenger, a thirtysomething with a wedding ring and panic-sweat beading at his hairline, stared at it like it was a live grenade.
"I said," the man repeated, voice softening in a way that made it worse, "pass. The bag."
"Please," the passenger whispered. "I—Please."
The man lifted the gun, didn't bother to point it. He fired once into the floor by the man's sneaker. The bang turned the bus into a mouthful of screams.
"Quiet," the man said calmly, and when that didn't work, he raised the gun higher.
The second shot didn't go into a floorboard.
Blood sprayed the window. The man who'd been arguing with gravity three seconds ago folded back into his seat, eyes empty, a red stain blooming across his shirt.
A woman sobbed. A baby wailed. The driver made a strangled noise and kept his hands welded to the wheel.
"Here's what we learned," the gunman said, breath steady. "This isn't a debate. There are ten bullets left. There are, what, fifteen? Twenty of you? Keep giving me reasons to use them, and we'll find out which of you gets to be a headline."
Silence, not compliance, exactly the kind of stillness fear wears when it's trying not to be noticed.
The bag started to move, Wallet, watch, phone, Wallet, watch, phone. Pass, pass, pass.
Missy looked back at Sylas, eyes wide with a thousand things she didn't say: 'What do we do? Do something, don't die.'
He gave her one calm nod a promise tucked behind his eyes, 'I've got you.'
He dropped his wallet into the bag when it came, light as a ghost, and let it continue. Missy did the same, The man never looked away from the driver.
The black sack reached the last row a teenager in a blue hoodie, hands shaking so hard the bag rustled like leaves.
"Bring it here," the gunman said.
The kid's mouth worked. No sound came out. He clutched the sack to his chest like a flotation device and shook his head.
"I said," the gunman repeated, "bring it—"
"I've got it," Sylas cut in, lifting his hand.
The pistol swung his way on instinct. "You got what?"
"His courage," Sylas said, layering in the right amount of tremble. He kept his posture small, nonthreatening, a boy trying to be useful. "He's frozen. You want the bag, not a mess. Let me help."
The gunman studied him for one long second, reading selfish calculus in the wide brown eyes, the not-quite-steady breath. "You a hero, kid?"
"No," Sylas said truthfully. "I'm realistic. If he drops that bag and you panic, a stray bullet's going to go through three people before it stops." He flicked a look at the barrel, then at Missy, then at the families tucked like dominoes into the aisle. "Let me fix it."
A quiet grin from the man under the cap. "Smart."
Sylas slid down the aisle, calm as a night tide. The kid in the hoodie thrust the sack at him so hard it crinkled.
"Thanks," the kid whispered, tear tracks shining.
"Got it," Sylas murmured back. "Eyes on me, not on him."
He lifted the bag, raised both hands so the gunman could see them, and walked forward.
Every step he took, he mapped exits and angles: the distance to the driver's knee, the sway of the bus, the reflectivity of the windshield, the way the gunman's wrist shifted under stress.
He measured Missy's breath without looking slow, held, then slow again when he'd smiled at her. 'Good girl, stay with me.'
Five steps, Four, Three.
"Stop," the gunman snapped, as Sylas reached the second row.
Sylas froze.
"Set it on the floor," the man said. "Then back up."
"Sure," Sylas said. He crouched, eased the sack onto the rubber mat, and raised his hands again. "No problem."
The bus hit a joint in the road and jolted. The gun flickered not much, half an inch at most but enough to show what the man was worried about: losing balance, losing control, losing time.
Sylas let the fear sit visible on his face.
"You don't have to keep the gun to his head," he said quietly, nodding at the driver. "You're already steering."
"I don't take advice," the man said, but his eyes cut to the mirror anyway a reflex he couldn't unlearn. For a fraction of a second his focus split.
Missy's fingers tightened on the seatback. Sylas kept his hands high. The bus rolled past a cross street, sirens closer now, then farther, then gone. The city was busy.
"Now," the gunman said. "Kick it forward."
Sylas didn't. Instead, he glanced down at the sack at the half-open mouth, at the glitter of someone's watch face and lifted his chin.
"Hold up."
The man's head tilted, the barrel shifting with it. "What did you just say to me?"
"I said, hold up," Sylas repeated, voice a notch louder, just enough to redraw the man's attention to him and off the driver's temple. The muzzle followed the sound, a snake charmed by a note. "You don't want a panic. Let me hand it to you. Nice and easy."
He reached toward the sack very slowly, eyes never leaving the gunman's. The barrel drifted the last few inches to centre on Sylas's chest.
The driver inhaled.
Missy whispered, "Sylas," like a prayer.
Sylas wrapped his fingers around the crumpled plastic and stood inch by inch, letting the weight of the bag pull his shoulder down a kid struggling with the gravity of everybody else's money.
"Good," the man said, leaning in. "Now—"
"Wait," Sylas said.
The word cut the air cleanly. The bus seemed to hold its breath with him.
The gunman's mouth tightened. "What did you—"
"Wait."
His tone shifted not louder, but lower. It carried something ancient in it, a pressure that made the aisle feel narrower.
For the first time, the man flinched without moving.
Behind the mask of fear, Sylas's eyes had gone very, very calm.
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