The moment the coordinates locked into place on her screen, Aika didn't waste another breath.
She grabbed her keys with trembling fingers and bolted from the office like something feral had seized her. The corridor lights flickered above her like a countdown, and her heart drummed a tempo too urgent to ignore.
She flung open her car door, slammed herself behind the wheel, and twisted the ignition. The engine sputtered to life.
As she shifted gears, her voice broke the silence with a whisper so quiet it could've been a breath.
"Hold on… just for a little bit longer. Promise… I'll come and get you."
The warehouse squatted at the edge of the city like a rotting tooth—forgotten, unwanted, yet still capable of inflicting pain.
Inside, Ren sat bound to a rusted chair bolted to the floor. His arms were cinched so tightly behind him that the ropes cut into his skin, already raw from friction and bruised from blows. One eye was nearly swollen shut, his lip cracked and bloodied, and sweat clung to his fevered skin.
24 hours in the dark with only questions and fists to keep him company.
"What did you send?" the larger of the men growled for the third time that hour, pacing like a lion losing patience.
Ren didn't respond.
He didn't even flinch when the slap landed. He just sat there, eyes barely open, head lolling forward.
"You think silence protects you?" the second man sneered. "You think the cripple gets to play hero?"
Another blow. This time a punch to the ribs.
Ren wheezed, the air forced from his lungs. But his mouth remained shut.
They were losing time. They knew it. They kept returning to the same questions—What did you find? Where did you send it? Who else knows?
But Ren didn't give them anything. Not because he was brave. Not because he wasn't afraid. But because he had already sent it. He had done the only thing he could do.
Now he just had to hold on.
If he could survive long enough…
If she saw it—if she realized what he saw—she would come.
She had to.
The tires screeched as Aika reached the edge of the compound. Gravel spit from beneath her wheels as she killed the headlights and pulled behind a stack of shipping containers.
The building loomed in front of her like a yawning mouth.
She had already called the police. But waiting wasn't an option. Not when every second could be costing him more pain and danger. Not when something inside her screamed that he didn't have time.
She checked the small baton strapped beneath her coat. A relic from her dojo days, reinforced with steel. Then she took a deep breath, stepped out of the car… and vanished into the shadows.
Inside, one of the guards was leaning against the wall with a cigarette.
He didn't even hear her until the baton connected with the side of his temple.
He dropped like a stone.
She dragged his body behind a crate and moved forward, muscles taut with focus, every step quiet as a whisper. Her ears scanned for movement. Her eyes for shifts in light. She took down the next two guards with surgical precision—one behind a stack of boxes, another just outside a rusted stairwell.
None of them even managed to shout.
The only room she didn't explore was the one with four guards posted outside its bolted door. Aika crouched behind a nearby beam, watching.
The only room that was guarded.
That had to be it.
Her heart surged.
She waited.
Then moved.
She didn't hesitate.
She charged.
The first two guards didn't even register her before she slammed them both into the wall. The third reached for his weapon, but she swept his feet from under him and elbowed him in the throat before he could breathe. The fourth swung a crowbar.
She ducked, countered with a blow to the ribs, and followed up with a knee to the face.
All four were down.
She didn't stop.
She kicked the door.
Hard.
It rattled. Then gave way.
She rushed in.
And froze.
Ren sat there, his head bowed, his skin pale and clammy, streaked with dried blood. His wrists were torn raw. His breathing was laboured, shallow, pained.
But the second he heard the door crash open, his head jerked weakly up.
For a moment, he couldn't believe what he saw.
Then she said his name.
"Aika…?" he whispered, as if afraid it was a dream.
And when her eyes met his—when she ran to him and dropped to her knees, her voice breaking—he let the first tear fall.
Because she came.
Because somehow, against all odds, she came.
"I thought—" he choked. "I thought… I wouldn't… see you again…"
She was already untying him, hands flying, voice trembling.
"I promised myself," she said, cutting the last rope, "if you ever needed me—I'd come."
He collapsed forward into her arms. She caught him, cradled his body with an arm under his shoulders, her other hand gripping his waist as she pulled him toward an abandoned rolling cart.
She settled him onto it with care and pushed it as fast as she dared toward the exit.
Every second was borrowed time.
But they made it.
They burst into the open air.
She carried him into her car, heart hammering, eyes already glancing in the mirror.
As she drove, she could feel his breath getting weaker, fainter. But he was still conscious.
"Thank you…" he murmured, voice nearly gone.
She glanced at him, eyes wet, hand tightening on the wheel.
"You're safe now," she whispered. "You're safe."
He looked at her—only her—and smiled, eyes glassy.
"I'm so… afraid… I wouldn't see you again…"
"You did," she said, voice breaking. "You saw me. And I saw you."
And with that, he let go, slipping into unconsciousness as the sound of police sirens finally rose behind them, chasing the night.
She pulled him from the storm—but the real storm hasn't even begun.