Jasper’s POV
Sirens wailed in the distance, too close, too fast. Someone had called this in, maybe a watcher we hadn’t seen, maybe a neighbor with insomnia and suspicion. David melted back into shadow with the practice of a man who never met a door he couldn’t turn into an exit.
Miriam threw the rope anyway. The beam of her headlamp found Jasmine at the bottom of the pit, crumpled, chest fluttering, blood seeping from her hair into concrete. Alive. Barely.
“Pulse,” Miriam said, clinical even when her hands shook. “Weak. Concussion at minimum. Possible skull fracture.”
“EMS is two minutes,” I said, listening to the pitch of the sirens climb. I looked at Scarlett. Her face was cold marble over boiling water. She didn’t look away from the hole until the first emergency lights painted the
