Fire licked up the blackened walls of Kane Tower.
Victoria stood ten feet away, the gasoline at her feet already catching. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“Run, Alexander. You always do.”
Alexander didn’t run.
He shoved Ava behind him.
“Get to the car,” he said, low. “Keys in my pocket. Go.”
Ava grabbed his sleeve. “Not without you.”
“You won’t be,” he said. And then he moved.
---
*The Chase*
The first gunshot cracked the air.
Not from Victoria. From the shadows behind her.
Two more men in black stepped out. Victoria’s cleanup crew.
Alexander grabbed a piece of rebar from the rubble and swung.
Bone crunched. One man went down.
The second raised his gun —
Ava acted.
She hadn’t held a gun in her life. Not this version.
But Version 9 had. In a lab in Nevada.
Her hands reme
