The strange, disorienting sensation of blood pooling in my head, of gravity pulling the wrong direction, of my body being oriented in a way it absolutely should not be.
Upside down.
I'm hanging upside down.
Second: cold.
Metal against my wrists, my ankles, biting into skin with the particular chill of something industrial. Chains, maybe. Or cuffs. Something designed to hold, to restrain, to keep me exactly where someone wants me.
Third: recognition.
The familiar weight of fabric against my skin—my costume, still on, the dark panels and hidden burgundy that I wore for the performance. The performance that ended with bullets and blood and Kai's hand pressing a chloroform-soaked handkerchief to my face.
Kai.
He drugged me.
He BETRAYED me.
The memory crashes back with devastating clarity—the theater, the escape, the moment I trusted him, the moment I was wrong.
Target secured.
That's what he said.
I was the target all along.
My eyes snap open.
The world is inverted—ceiling below, floor above, everything twisted and wrong. I'm hanging from an aerial ring, I realize—the kind I've trained on countless times, designed for acrobatics and performance and beautiful, gravity-defying movement.
But there's nothing beautiful about this.
The ring is suspended high above a concrete floor—thirty feet, maybe more. Warehouse architecture surrounds me: exposed beams, industrial lighting, the particular aesthetic of a space designed for function rather than form.
And strapped to my chest...
One-two-three-four.
My heart stutters.
One-two-three-four.
A bomb.
An actual, literalbomb—wires and circuitry and a digital display counting down seconds that I can read even from this angle.
08:47
08:46
08:45
"Damn."
The word comes out flat.
Calm.
