VANTABLACK VOWS

"Shit," Kyoline hissed, her boots skidding on the damp pavement as she jerked to a halt.

"What do you mean, 'shit'?" a voice rasped from a slit of absolute darkness to her left.

Kyoline’s head snapped toward the alley, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She clutched the heavy backpack strap, her knuckles white, and took a jagged step back. "Who’s there? I’m armed."

"Don't turn around like prey," the voice said. It was low, calm, and carried a weight that made the hair on her arms stand up. "Just walk in here. Slow. Unless you want the cruiser at the corner to see your face."

Her instincts screamed at her to run, but the street behind her was too exposed, bathed in the sickly orange glow of a flickering streetlamp. She edged toward the shadows, her eyes straining to adjust.

A tall figure leaned against the soot-stained brick, draped in a heavy hooded coat. The hood cast their features into a void, but Kyoline could see the sharp, deliberate line of a mouth when they spoke. "You’re at the right place," the stranger said. "But the party’s been canceled."

She gripped the strap harder, the weight of the handgun inside the bag feeling like a lead anchor. "Canceled? What are you talking about? I have a delivery for the drop-off point. Tenz said—"

"Yeah, and so did the kid they just cuffed two blocks over," the figure interrupted.

Kyoline’s stomach tightened into a cold knot. "You... you saw that?"

"I see everything in this district," the figure said. The faint, bitter scent of tobacco drifted from them, mixed with a metallic tang that smelled like old copper. "And what I see right now is a girl about to walk straight into a precinct cell."

A patrol car rolled past the alley mouth, its headlights cutting a blinding swathe across the bricks. Kyoline flinched, pressing her spine against the cold wall until the red tail-lights faded into the fog.

"A trap?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "But Tenz promised me... he said this was a clean run."

"Tenz," the figure scoffed, a dry, humorless sound. "He’s been looking for a fall guy for months. Too much heat on his main crew, so he feeds a new runner to the wolves. They get a bust, the heat dies down, and Tenz stays clean."

Kyoline’s mind stuttered through the last hour—the urgent phone call, the promise of quick cash that would finally get her brother the meds he needed, the way Tenz wouldn't look her in the eye when he handed over the bag.

"He told me I'd get a cut," she said, her voice cracking. "He said it was simple."

"Simple for him," the stranger said, stepping closer. "You take the fall, and he uses your arrest to scare the other runners into line. He gets loyalty through fear, and it doesn't cost him a dime."

Kyoline’s hand shook violently against her bag. "Why are you telling me