The transition from the climate-controlled opulence of the museum to the brutal winter air of the rooftop felt like being struck by a physical weight. The wind screamed across the limestone parapets, whipping Elara's crimson silk gown around her legs like a bloody flag.
"The line, Elara! Clip in now!" Julian's voice barely carried over the rising roar of the approaching helicopter.
He didn't wait for her consent. His hands, encased in tactical leather, grabbed her harness. For a split second, his chest was crushed against hers. She could feel the erratic, thunderous beat of his heart—or was it hers? The adrenaline was a toxic cocktail in her veins, making her vision sharpen until she could see the individual snowflakes evaporating against the hot barrel of his gun.
"I can do it myself," she snapped, pushing his hands away even as she snapped the steel carabiner onto the high-tension wire.
"Then do it faster," Julian countered, his eyes scanning the horizon. "We have a Black Hawk closing in at two o'clock. They aren't here to negotiate."
The searchlight of the helicopter swept across the roof, a blinding eye of God that threatened to pin them like insects to a board. Elara didn't hesitate. She stepped onto the ledge, the 80-foot drop into the darkness of Central Park yawning beneath her like a grave.
"On three," Julian whispered, stepping up beside her. He reached out, his gloved fingers interlacing with hers for a fraction of a second. A silent promise. A ghost of Marrakesh. "One. Two—"
"Three!" Elara yelled, throwing herself into the abyss.
The Descent
The world vanished into a blur of vertical motion. The friction of the pulley against the wire let out a high-pitched, metallic scream that mirrored the wind in her ears. Gravity clawed at her stomach. Beside her, Julian was a shadow against the stars, his body positioned perfectly to catch the wind.
The helicopter pivoted. The thud-thud-thud of the rotors became a deafening roar.
"They're opening the side door!" Julian shouted.
Muzzle flashes. Tracers—streaks of glowing red light—sliced through the air between them. The Vipers weren't aiming for their bodies; they were aiming for the wire. If the line snapped, they wouldn't just fall; they would be whipped into the side of the stone building like ragdolls.
"Julian! Ten o'clock!" Elara screamed.
She drew her suppressed 9mm mid-descent. It was a shot that shouldn't have been possible—suspended on a wire, moving at forty miles per hour, buffeted by gale-force winds. She took a breath, held it, and squeezed the trigger.
The glass of the helicopter's searchlight exploded.
For a few precious seconds, the mercenaries were blinded. The red tracers went wide, chewing up the museum's ornate cornices above them.
"Nice shot, Ace," Julian grunted.
The end of the line approached with terrifying speed. The black SUV was idling on the curb, its lights off, a dark shark in a sea of city traffic. They weren't going to land; they were going to impact.
Julian reached out, grabbing the collar of Elara's harness. "Bace for impact! I've got you!"
They hit the specialized landing mat Julian had pre-deployed on the roof of the SUV with a bone-jarring thud. The suspension of the vehicle groaned. Before Elara could even draw a breath, Julian was rolling off the side, dragging her with him into the backseat as the glass of the rear window shattered from a sniper's trailing round.
The High-Speed Chase
"Drive! Drive!" Julian roared.
The driver—a silent, scarred man named Marcus—slammed the SUV into gear. The tires screamed, smoking against the asphalt as the vehicle lurched forward, fishtailing onto Fifth Avenue.
Elara scrambled up from the floorboards, her dress torn to the thigh, her hair a wild halo of mahogany silk. She looked out the back window. The Black Hawk was banking low, skimming the tops of the streetlamps.
"We can't outrun a chopper in a suburban tank, Julian," she panted, reloading her magazine with shaking hands.
"We aren't outrunning it," Julian said, his eyes fixed on the tablet embedded in the seatback. "We're leading it into a trap. But first, we have to deal with the tail."
Two black motorcycles surged out of the park, weaving through the late-night yellow cabs. The riders were lean, dressed in matte-black armor, wielding submachine guns.
"Cover the left," Julian ordered. He pushed a button on the armrest, and the sunroof slid open. He stood up through the roof, his coat flapping violently in the slipstream as he leveled a short-barreled rifle at the pursuing bikes.
Elara rolled down her window, the freezing air stinging her cheeks. She leaned out, her core muscles burning as she stabilized herself against the door frame. One of the bikers raised his weapon. Elara was faster. She put two rounds into his front tire. The bike flipped forward in a spectacular arc of sparks and twisted metal, forcing the second rider to swerve and crash into a parked limousine.
"One down!" she yelled.
Julian dropped back into the seat, his face flushed with the heat of the fight. "The chopper is coming back for a gun run. Marcus, hit the tunnel!"
The SUV dived into the mouth of the 63rd Street Tunnel. The roar of the engine echoed off the tiles, a deafening cacophony of combustion.
The Friction
Inside the tunnel, the helicopter lost its line of sight. For a moment, there was a haunting, pressurized silence, broken only by the hum of the tires.
Elara slumped back against the leather seat, her adrenaline beginning to ebb, leaving behind a sharp, cold clarity. She looked at Julian. He was checking a wound on his forearm where a shard of glass had sliced through his tuxedo.
"You're bleeding," she said, her voice softer now.
"I've had worse. Usually when you're around," he replied, a smirk playing on his lips, though it didn't reach his eyes.
Elara reached out, her hand hovering near his arm before she pulled it back as if burned. "Don't. Don't act like we're back to the way things were. You left me in Marrakesh, Julian. I watched the villa explode with you inside—or so I thought. I spent three months in a Moroccan infirmary thinking I was the reason you were dead."
Julian's expression hardened. He leaned in, closing the space between them until she could see the flecks of gold in his dark irises. The SUV swerved as Marcus avoided a lane-change, throwing Elara into Julian's chest. He didn't let go. He gripped her upper arms, his touch firm, grounding.
"I didn't leave you," he whispered, his voice vibrating in his chest. "I was blown out the back of the building by the first blast. By the time I crawled out of the rubble, the Vipers had moved in. If I had come for you then, they would have killed us both. I spent eighteen months tearing the world apart to find the man who set us up. I did it for us."
"There is no us, Julian. There's just the mission."
"LIar," he breathed.
He leaned in closer, his gaze dropping to her lips. The air in the SUV was thick with the scent of burnt rubber, gunpowder, and an ancient, undeniable hunger. For a heartbeat, the danger outside—the mercenaries, the drive, the dying world—didn't matter.
Then, the roof of the SUV erupted.
The helicopter had hovered over the ventilation shaft of the tunnel, timing their exit. A harpoon-like cable pierced the roof of the car, hooking into the frame.
"They're trying to lift us!" Marcus yelled from the front.
The SUV tilted, the rear wheels lifting off the pavement.
"Not today," Elara hissed. She grabbed a flare from the door pocket, kicked her door open, and looked up. The helicopter was winching them up like a prize catch.
"Julian! Give me your knife!"
He tossed her a serrated ceramic blade. Elara climbed onto the door frame, her red dress whipping in the wind, and began to saw at the high-tension cable. It was a suicide move. If she cut it, the car would slam back down to earth at sixty miles per hour.
"Elara, get back inside!" Julian screamed, reaching for her.
The cable snapped with the sound of a gunshot. The SUV slammed back onto the road, the shocks bottoming out with a scream of metal. Elara tumbled back into the seat, Julian catching her, pinning her to the floorboards as the car sped out of the tunnel and into the labyrinth of the Queens industrial district.
"You're insane," Julian panted, his face buried in her neck as they lay tangled on the floor.
"You're the one who taught me," she whispered back, her heart racing against his.
They were safe for now, but the hunt had only just begun.