The night air cut like glass when I stumbled out of the alley, mask still clutched to my chest.
Every sound felt amplified — the sirens, the far-off shouts, my heartbeat drumming too fast, like my pulse had turned into engine pistons.
My car was a wreck, the van a smoking heap. The suits had scattered like cockroaches when the lights hit. But he was gone. The black car that had saved me vanished before the authorities arrived, like it had been absorbed back into the dark.
All I had was the mask.
It wasn’t just a racing mask — it was modified, heavier, with intricate metal veins and burn marks across the side like it had survived an explosion. I could still smell his cologne on it — that mix of ozone and fuel and something dangerously human.
And there, on the inside rim, scratched fain
