Rain came that night.
We found shelter inside an abandoned subway station, descending through a maintenance hatch that smelled of mold and old piss and the particular mineral scent of underground places. Water leaked through the ceiling in a steady rhythm, plinking against the tracks, pooling on the concrete in dark puddles that reflected nothing.
Mara sat against the wall, her knees drawn to her chest, her eyes closed. She was shaking. Not from cold. From aftermath. From the realization that she'd jumped off a roof and lived.
I stood across from her, my back to the opposite wall, my knife in my hand. The blade was useless against what hunted us, but holding it made me feel human. Neither spoke. There was nothing to say that wouldn't make it worse. Every word felt like a step closer to a truth neither of us wanted to name.
Finally, Mara said: "You saved her."
I looked at her. "Who?"
"Voss. You could have killed her. You had her. She was hanging there, and you walked away."
I looked at my hands. The gloves were ruined, my third pair this week. The leather was split at the seams, black stains seeping through. "Maybe I wanted answers."
"Do you think that's all?"
I didn't answer. I knew what she was asking. She was asking if I'd spared Voss because I was still Kael, or because some part of me—the part that was growing, learning, becoming —recognized Rainbow as its maker. As its family.
Mara watched me, her eyes too sharp, seeing too much. "You were hungry."
My eyes hardened. "Yes."
She looked away. The silence stretched between us, elastic and tense, vibrating with everything unsaid.
Then something fell from the ceiling. A black drop landed on Mara's hand. She froze, staring at it, her face going pale in the dim light.
I moved instantly. "Don't touch it."
She wiped it away. The drop hissed against the concrete, smoking, and the floor beneath it turned black. The stain spread in a spiral, following some invisible pattern, some geometry that hurt to look at.
I stared. "It came from above."
Mara looked up.
More drops began falling. Not water. Something thicker, heavier, wrong. Black rain. It hissed when it hit the ground, eating into concrete, into metal, into the discarded trash that littered the station. Where it touched water, the water turned dark. Where it touched air, it steamed.
I grabbed her arm. "Run."
We sprinted through the tunnel, the black liquid spreading behind us, moving against gravity, toward us, hungry for living things.