His breathing had grown alarmingly labored, each inhale a visible struggle. “Can’t… remember.”
But the flash of pain that crossed his face told me otherwise. He remembered something, and the remembering seemed to hurt more than the poison itself. This man who had seemed indestructible just hours ago now lay trembling on the mattress, poison spreading visibly through his veins.
“Stay with me,” I said, unsure if I meant physically or mentally. Perhaps both.
I grabbed my laptop and pulled the kitchen chair to the bedside, perching on its edge with the computer balanced on my knees. The USB drive hummed as I plugged it in, my attention divided between the screen and Reaper’s increasingly shallow breathing.
The heat radiating from his skin had intensified, and the blue-black lines now reached his jawline, creeping toward his face like dark fingers.
My hands flew across the keyboard, scanning the encrypted files for anything about Prima generation subjects. Most documents referenced their “structural instability” and “memory retrieval vulnerabilities”—clinical language masking what I now understood was brutal experimentation.
“There has to be something,” I muttered, scrolling faster through technical documents filled with chemical compounds whose names I couldn’t pronounce.
Reaper’s breathing changed, becoming erratic and shallow. His head turned restlessly on the pillow, eyelids fluttering as though he were watching scenes play out behind them.
“No,” he mumbled, his voice barely audible. “Not her. Sofia wasn’t… wasn’t the target.”
I froze, my fingers hovering above the keyboard. Something cold and sharp lodged in my chest at hearing that name again. “Reaper? Can you hear me?”
His eyes snapped open, focusing somewhere beyond my shoulder. “Collateral damage… unacceptable.”
I abandoned my laptop, moving to sit beside him on the bed. “What happened to Sofia?”
His hand shot out with surprising speed, grabbing my wrist with unexpected strength given his condition. “This is… temporary. Keep going. Need to know… everything.”
I hesitated, torn between my researcher’s instinct to continue searching and my growing fear for him—fear that threatened to become something deeper, something I couldn’t afford.
“I can’t find anything about treatments or antidotes,” I admitted, my eyes burning up. I had hit many dead ends in the past few months, but this one struck me the hardest. “Not in these files.”
Reaper’s grip tightened momentarily before slackening, his hand falling limply back to the mattress.
It hurt to see him like this. Fear roamed through my body, consuming me entirely. And then, in a heartbeat, a decision was made. It was my last resort. Reaching for my burner phone, I momentarily hesitated, heart pounding inside my chest. I’d never risked a direct call to my informant before—our communication had always been through encrypted messages, drops, and that one face-to-face meeting with voice modulators. But Reaper was dying before my eyes, and I was out of options.
I dialed the number I’d only ever used for text messaging, heart pounding as I waited. The phone only rang once though, before the informant picked it up.
“What the hell are you doing?” The voice that answered was normal. Male. Deep. Angry. Not digitally disguised like at the den. Tears sprang to my eyes as I stared at Reaper.
“He’s dying,” I cut him off, surprising myself with the steadiness in my voice. “A bullet hit him when we left your den—it had some kind of poison. It was meant for me, but he intercepted it.”
A pause hung between us. “Assassins have stronger metabolisms than normal people, but they’re not immortal. What are his symptoms?”
“High fever. Blue lines spreading from the injection site. Delirium.” I glanced at Reaper, something tightening in my chest at how vulnerable he looked.
Another pause. “This is serious. I need to know exactly what compound they used. Can you describe the injection mechanism?”
“Small, slim cylinder. Like a dart. It emptied on impact.” I ran a hand through my hair, fighting to keep my voice level. “We’re running out of time.”
“I’ll look into it,” he said. “Where are you now?”
I hesitated, weighing trust against necessity. What other choice did I have? “Heliópolis. Near the east entrance.”
“Don’t move. I’ll contact you as soon as I know something.”
The line went dead. I set the phone down, returning my attention to Reaper. His condition had worsened in just those few minutes—skin ashen beneath the fever flush, the blue-black lines now visible at his hairline, creeping toward his temple.
“Maeve,” he whispered, my name sounding foreign on his lips. His eyes struggled to focus on my face, pupils contracting and dilating as though he were fighting to see through fog. “Something’s wrong. I can’t...”
His words cut off abruptly as his body went rigid, back arching slightly against the mattress. Then all at once, the tension drained from him. His eyes rolled back, lids fluttering closed as his head lolled to the side.
