The tunnels were collapsing.
The explosion had ruptured the metro's foundations, sending deep cracks racing across the walls. Overheard, steel beams groaned, dust and debris crumbling from the ceiling. The city was caving in.
And behind them - the battle still raged.
Gunfire. Metal screeches and clangs. Ace's last stand.
But Nikk couldn't stop.
He couldn't go back.
Because Tia was unconscious.
"Wake up," he whispered, desperate. He cradled her limb body as he ran, his pulse thundering in his skull. Bria sprinted beside him, trying to check Tia's vitals, but her hands were shaking too much. "She's not responding! The pulse is weak!"
Not bleeding. Not dying. Not waking up either. Something was wrong.
He knew. God, he knew.
"She was hit by a stun weapon!" Bria gasped. "But this… this isn't a normal reaction. It's like—"
She stopped herself. But Nikk knew what she wanted to say.
It was like Tia was shutting down.
The realization nearly paralyzed him.
But he didn't have time for fear.
"Move!" Ray shouted from ahead. He and Kaya were forcing open an old service door, muscles straining against rusted metal. "We have to go, now!"
The enforcers were closing in. Seconds away.
And Tia—
She was slipping away.
They burst through the door onto an underground platform. A single black-market boat waited in the river below.
It was a miracle it even ran.
"Get in! Now!" Kaya yelled, shoving Ray onto the boat.
The explosions swallowed the metro station in fire and steel, a final grave for the city's ghosts.
And for the first time since Ace's death, there was silence.
The boat rocked as it tore through the underground river, its stolen engine sputtering with every jolt. A broken escape in a broken world*.*
Nikk should've been thinking about their next move.
But he wasn't.
Because Tia wasn't moving.
She lay in his arms, too still, too quiet.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breadths. Her skin was cold - too cold.
And he knew.
He knew it the way he had known Ace wouldn't make it out of those tunnels. The way he had known this city never let anyone live for free.
She was dying.
Not from blood loss. Not from any wound.
But from the thing she had spent her entire existence fighting.
Novacore was finally erasing her.
"Tia," Nikk whispered, shaking her gently. "Come on. Open your eyes."
Her lips twitched. A flicker of something almost like amusement.
Slowly, painfully, she opened her eyes - not all the way. Just enough to see him.
"You're making that face again," she murmured.
Nikk swallowed. "What face?"
"The one where you pretend you're not scared."
His breath hitched.
Because she was right.
Bria was working frantically beside him, scanning Tia's vitals, her hands shaking too much to be useful.
"It's her brain. The stun charge - it wasn't meant to knock her out. It was meant to erase her completely."
She looked up, eyes wild. "She's shutting down."
Shutting down.
Like the city had programmed her to.
Like she had never been meant to exist in the first place.
"No," Nikk whispered. "Not like this."
Tia exhaled softly. Almost a laugh.
"Don't look like that, Nikk," she said. Her voice was quiet, like she was already moving.
His throat closed up. "I—I can fix this. We just have to…"
"No, you can't."
She smiled. Soft. Knowing.
And for the first time, Nikk saw something he hadn't expected.
Not fear.
Not pain.
Peace.
Like she had always accepted it.
Like she had always known it would end this way.
The others had gone quiet. Even Bria had stopped moving, her hands still hovering over Tia's fading pulse.
Because they knew.
The city had taken everything from them.
Now, it was taking her.
Tia's fingers trembled as she reached for Nikk's face, cupping it in her palm. Just barely.
"Hey," she whispered.
He bent closer, "Yeah?"
Her lips curved in the smallest, softest smile.
"I'm glad I met you."
Nikk's chest caved in.
His vision blurred.
And as the stolen boat carried them into the darkness, Tia closed her eyes.
Never to open them again.
Ace died fighting. Tia died fading.
Ace never got to confess his love.
Tia got to say her final words.
But either way, Novacore won.