She felt like she’s floating.

That was the only word that made sense.

Her body felt heavy yet light at the same time, her limbs numb and distant, as if they belonged to someone else entirely. Her chest rose and fell so shallowly, she wasn’t even sure she was breathing.

Everywhere was pitch black.

Or maybe her eyes were closed?

Or maybe she was dead, and this was what came after.

Am I dreaming? Am I dying?

It didn’t feel like sleep. It didn’t feel like anything at all—just empty space, thick and unmoving, like being suspended in dark honey. Her thoughts were sluggish, fragmented, like trying to push through molasses with broken fingers.

What happened? Where am I? Why can’t I—

Then—

A sound.

Distant. Muffled.

A voice?

It echoed in her skull, bouncing off the fog in her brain like a stone thrown into a well.

She couldn’t understand what it said, not at first. It was like hearing someone scream underwater—repeated, strained, urgent, but distorted beyond meaning.

Someone’s calling. Someone’s—

Then—

PAIN.

A sudden, sharp stab tore through her arm and ripped her wide awake like a fishhook dragging her back to the surface.

She gasped.

Her body lurched, breath shooting out as if her lungs had been kicked into motion by invisible hands. The pitch blackness fractured into blurred gray light, color bleeding into focus like watercolors spreading across wet paper.

She screamed.

The pain in her left arm was unbearable—a white-hot agony that radiated through her chest and down her side like liquid fire. Something wet and gritty clung to her face. Dust, maybe blood, maybe both.

What—what happened to me?

She blinked, trying to clear her vision.

A silhouette loomed over her—shaky, backlit, crouched close enough that she could feel warmth radiating from their skin.

“—Hey! Hey! Wake up, damn it!”

The voice was familiar, rough with desperation.

She blinked again, harder this time.

The figure became a face.

A familiar one.

Mark.

His mouth moved fast, his voice ragged and too loud, like he’d been shouting for a while. There was a deep gash across his forehead, and blood streamed freely down the side of his face, soaking into his shirt collar like spilled wine.

His golden eyes weren’t calculating now—they were wild. Frantic. Almost… scared?

Why does he look scared?

“I said wake up!” he barked again, his hand hovering over her shoulder like he wanted to shake her but was afraid to touch.

“Ugh—” she groaned, and even that small sound sent another spike of agony through her body. She twitched on instinct and then screamed again as the pain surged back with renewed vengeance.

Mark flinched like her scream had physically struck him. “Shit. Sorry. Don’t—don’t move.”

Don’t move? She tried to breathe. It hurt.

Everything hurt.

Every inch of her skin felt like it had been sandpapered raw. Her lungs burned with each breath. Her left arm throbbed like it was being crushed in a vise, over and over again.

What’s wrong with my arm?

Then she saw it.

Her left arm—torn open like a split seam.

A long, deep gash ran from the top of her upper arm down to her elbow, jagged and raw, like she’d been ripped open by twisted metal. The edges of the wound were angry and red, and she could see too deep inside herself—layers of tissue and muscle that were never meant to see light.

Blood soaked through what was left of her shirt, dripping down her forearm in thick, sticky trails that reminded her grotesquely of syrup. Her skin was a patchwork of red and torn flesh, and the sight alone made her vision swim with nausea.

Oh God. Oh God, that’s my arm. That’s my—

“You’re lucky,” Mark muttered, crouched beside her, his face streaked with soot and blood like war paint. “It missed the artery. Just a deep slice—ugly as hell, but it’s not life-ending.”

Lucky. The word felt absurd.

She stared at the wound, unable to process how she hadn’t noticed the pain until just now—how shock and adrenaline must’ve wrapped her in merciful numbness until her body was ready to handle the truth.

“The crate behind you,” he continued, nodding toward something behind her head. “Took most of the blast. Shielded you from the worst of it.”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but she knew the rest: If it hadn’t… you’d be dead. In pieces.

The explosion. The grenade.

Her eyes widened in horror as the memories came flooding back in sharp, jagged fragments.

Elishia tried to lift her head to see more of their surroundings.

The world spun like a carnival ride.

Debris surrounded them—shattered crates, chunks of twisted steel, torn electrical cables sparking intermittently in the gloom. Smoke curled in the air like ghostly fingers, and emergency sprinklers dripped from above in a broken, irregular rhythm.

Mark’s body was positioned between hers and what looked like a collapsed section of wall—concrete and rebar twisted into impossible shapes. He must’ve thrown himself over her when the explosion hit.

He protected me. Why did he—?

Her body felt flattened, compressed, like it had been run over by something massive and merciless.

She shifted slightly and gasped, curling in on herself as pain lanced through her ribs.

“Easy. Don’t—don’t move too much,” Mark warned, pressing a gentle hand against her chest to stop her. His touch was surprisingly careful. “You’ve probably got cracked ribs. Your leg’s bruised to hell.”

His voice faltered, became quieter. “But you’re alive.”

Alive. The word felt foreign.

Then she heard it.

Sirens.

Loud, overlapping sirens, blaring from outside the warehouse like a mechanical symphony of chaos.

Not just one kind—several.

Police. Their harsh, urgent wail.

Ambulances. Higher pitched, more frantic.

Fire department. Deep and commanding.

Emergency response in full force.

Someone called. Someone knows what happened here.

The chaos hadn’t ended. It was still happening, still unfolding outside these broken walls.

Mark looked toward the shattered opening in the wall, jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth. “We can’t stay here. The cops won’t ask questions first—they’ll arrest whoever’s standing and not wearing a badge.”

He looked back at her, and something in his expression was different. 

“We have to move. Now.”

We?

****

Mark scooped her up with surprising gentleness—princess-style, his arms threading beneath her knees and back with practiced efficiency.

Elishia groaned at the shift in weight, the pain slicing through her ribs and arm like lightning seeking ground, but she bit down on the sound, trying her best to cooperate. She didn’t want to slow him down. She didn’t want to be more of a burden than she already was.

Why is he helping me? Why isn’t he running?

He muttered something under his breath—it sounded like a curse, but maybe a prayer—then steadied her against his chest.

“We’re moving,” he said, his voice all business again.

They weaved between fallen beams and broken crates, ducking low behind scattered debris. The air was still thick with dust and the sharp, acrid sting of burning electronics and melted plastic.

His heartbeat was strong against her shoulder, steady despite everything. She could feel the tension in his muscles, the way he moved with calculated precision even while carrying her dead weight.

He’s done this before, she realized. He knows how to move through disasters.

In the distance behind them, voices echoed—

Shouts. Screams. Then—gunfire.

Sharp cracks that made her flinch against Mark’s chest.

Elishia’s head twisted toward the sound despite the pain. Through the cracked remains of the warehouse wall, she caught a glimpse of flames rising high into the night sky like orange fingers clawing at the stars. The auction hall was completely engulfed now, black smoke churning violently into the air like a volcano mid-eruption.

Her vision blurred for a moment—not from the smoke, but from a sudden, overwhelming rush of emotion that hit her like a physical blow.

They’re dead…

The other girls.

Some had still been bound when the explosion hit. Unmoving. Barely conscious. They wouldn’t have been able to run, wouldn’t have been able to escape the flames or the collapsing structure.

Elishia clutched weakly at the front of Mark’s shirt, her fingers finding purchase in the blood-stained fabric.

But… maybe it was better this way…?

The thought felt blasphemous, but she couldn’t shake it.

They hadn’t been sold to monsters with deep pockets and darker appetites. They hadn’t been taken to unknown fates in the back seats of expensive cars.

They died as themselves. Not as property.

Not raped. Not tortured. Not owned.

Still, her mind whispered treacherous questions: Was it really better? Were they free now, or just gone? Is this what freedom meant—death as the only escape?

Was she just telling herself that to make the horror bearable?

Her body ached too much to cry. Her soul hurt more than her wounds.

As they turned another corner, slipping deeper into the maze of industrial buildings, Elishia noticed the labored sound of Mark’s breathing—harsh, uneven, like each breath cost him something. His grip on her was firm, protective, but his arms trembled slightly with each step.

“You’re hurt too,” she said, her voice hoarse and barely above a whisper.

Mark snorted softly, the sound flat and tired. “Wow. A genius observation.”

No real bite in his sarcasm this time. Just bone-deep exhaustion.

“You can put me down,” she murmured, trying to shift her weight to make herself lighter somehow. “I can still walk. I think.”

He didn’t even slow his pace.

“Yeah right. And what, have you faint halfway through and become a human mop? Forget it.”

“I’m not that fragile—”

“You’re bleeding, concussed, and probably running on pure adrenaline,” he said dryly, cutting her off. “Trust me, you’re fragile right now. I’m not.”

The casual dismissal should have stung, but it didn’t. Maybe because she could hear the concern underneath it, carefully hidden but there nonetheless.

Instead, she stared up at the flickering shadows cast by the distant streetlamps, then down the narrow alley they were slipping into. The walls rose high on either side, creating a canyon of brick and shadow.

“Where… where are we going?” she asked.

Mark didn’t answer right away. The wind picked up, a cold night breeze that cut through the tattered fabric of their clothes like knives. The alley was pitch black save for the dim yellow glow from industrial security lamps mounted high on the walls.

The ground was wet with something that probably wasn’t rain. Overturned trash cans spilled their contents across the asphalt. The reek of garbage, old piss, and something sweetly rotten clawed at her nose.

Finally, after several more careful steps, he said, “My place.”

A pause. A hesitation.

Then, with a sharp exhale that spoke of rapidly changing plans, he corrected himself. “No. Not there.”

“…Why not?”

“If this is what I think it is…” His jaw tightened, and she felt the tension ripple through his chest. “If someone targeted the operation specifically… then my place is probably ransacked. Or burned. Or both.”

Someone targeted the operation. The words hit her like puzzle pieces clicking into place.

“You think someone came to rescue us?” Hope flared in her chest, fragile and desperate.

Mark’s laugh was bitter. “Rescue? No. This wasn’t a rescue mission, princess. Rescues don’t use grenades in rooms full of hostages.”

The hope died as quickly as it had been born.

“Then what—?”

“Cleanup,” he said simply. “Someone wanted to erase the evidence. All of it.”

Elishia said nothing after that, but the silence between them wasn’t empty.

It was full—of things unsaid, unacknowledged, suspended like smoke in the cold night air. Questions that were too dangerous to ask, truths that were too terrible to speak.

And the only sound left was Mark’s footsteps, slow but steady, as he carried her deeper into the darkness—away from the flames, away from the sirens, away from everything she’d ever thought she understood about the world.

What happens now? she wondered. What happens to us?

But she didn’t ask. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.