The Curator was still unconscious when I dragged him out of the mansion. His body was heavy, but carrying him was not difficult. What concerned me was keeping him alive long enough to deliver him to Talon. His breathing remained shallow but steady, and although blood covered much of his clothing, his condition had stabilized. I had broken him badly, but I had deliberately stopped short of killing him. I needed him alive.
The courtyard was deserted. His men had abandoned the property so quickly that they had left weapons, equipment, and several vehicles behind. I looked over the remaining cars before settling on a black armored sedan parked near the entrance. It wasn't perfect, but it looked sturdy and fast enough to get me to where I needed to go.
I opened the rear door and shoved the Curator inside. His body rolled across the leather seat before his head came to rest against the window. I checked his pulse and confirmed that it remained steady before closing the door and walking around to the driver's side.
That was when the sirens began.
At first, I heard only a couple of them in the distance, but more quickly joined in until the entire street seemed to vibrate with the sound. Police cruisers flooded the roads surrounding the mansion, their lights washing the courtyard in red and blue as officers poured from their vehicles and established a perimeter around the property.
A loudspeaker crackled to life.
"Dagger! Step away from the vehicle and place your hands where we can see them!"
I remained beside the sedan and studied the police formation. There were enough officers to make forcing my way through inconvenient, but not enough to make me reconsider.
Then the officers parted. Two familiar figures walked through the center of the formation.
The Overwatch representatives.
They stopped behind the line of officers, taking caution should I try something. The first officer on scene drew a breath of relief that someone else would take charge instead of him. One of them raised a megaphone and addressed me.
"Dagger, this does not have to become another fight."
I gestured at the police surrounding me. "You say with an army."
"We brought enough people to make sure you could not escape." He counters back.
"That sounds like you do want a fight then."
The representative ignored my comment. "We are willing to offer you a deal."
I tilted my head, curious. I was undercover. Had my cover been blown? No. If so, I wouldn't be getting a deal. One of the head figures would be here. Most likely Gabriel. Still it was better to make appearances. "Go on."
"Hand over the Curator."
My eyes briefly shifted toward the sedan before returning to him. "In exchange for what?"
"You surrender yourself peacefully."
A quiet laugh escaped me. "You want me to hand over the man I just spent all night capturing and then allow you to arrest me. You guys suck at negotiating."
"That is exactly what we are offering."
"No."
The second representative stepped forward. "You do not understand the situation. The Curator is wanted for numerous crimes, and you have no legal authority to remove him from this city."
"Nothing I did here was legal."
The second representative had less patience. "I'll make this simple for you. You try to leave the premises with him, every cop will pursue you. The entire city will be alerted to your presence and searching for you. Then, Overwatch will make you the top wanted priority target, letting us use everything at our disposal to take you down. So let's skip the manhunt, and just turn yourself in now."
Besides the sirens, his words hung in the air. Regardless of the threat, turning myself in wasn't an option at the moment. But it made me think, when would all this be over? Could I take down Talon before Doomfist could take head? Only one way to see. I opened the driver's door.
The officers immediately tightened their formation, and several weapons rose higher.
"Dagger, do not!"
I climbed into the driver's seat. The representative's expression hardened as he realized I had no intention of negotiating.
"Did you not understand? You're going to be the target of the nation!"
I started the engine.
"I know."
The first shot struck the windshield. I ducked instinctively as another round struck the hood, then slammed my foot onto the accelerator.
The sedan surged forward and tore through the police barricade. Its front end slammed into one of the cruisers and shoved it sideways across the road, forcing several officers to dive out of the way. I kept the steering wheel steady as the sedan bounced over the curb and entered the street.
The sirens immediately followed.
I checked the rearview mirror and saw at least six police vehicles already pursuing me, with more joining from nearby streets. I accelerated and pushed the damaged sedan as hard as it would go while the city blurred around me.
One cruiser pulled alongside me and attempted to force me toward the curb. I swerved toward it, causing the officer to back away rather than risk a collision. Another cruiser moved into the lane ahead, so I turned sharply onto a side street and narrowly avoided its front bumper.
They were coordinating better than I expected. Every time I found an opening, another vehicle appeared.
A few blocks later, I saw why.
A roadblock had been established across the next intersection. Three cruisers were positioned across the street while officers stood behind them with weapons raised. There was no room to turn. Praying that no one would die, I accelerated.
The officers scattered as I drove through the barricade. The sedan struck one of the cruisers hard enough to lift its front end from the pavement before dropping back onto the road. The impact damaged the vehicle even further, but the engine continued running.
When I checked the rearview mirror again, I saw the Curator had been thrown across the back seat during the collision. His head had struck the door, and fresh blood was beginning to run down his face.
I frowned.
I could not keep driving like this. The Curator needed to remain alive, and I could not allow the police to follow me to the Talon safe zone. I had no idea what was there, but I had no intention on compromising the operatives and possibly even Nyx who was likely there. I had a reputation to keep and needed to at least meet the other divisional head of Talon before I could even consider taking anyone down.
I needed to lose them before going near it. I began taking increasingly complicated routes through the city, turning onto side streets and changing directions whenever I found an opportunity. The police followed every move, but the pursuit gradually began to thin as I forced the cruisers to split up at intersections. One turned left while another continued straight, and I used the confusion to take a third route.
Within several minutes, only two vehicles remained behind me.
I spotted an underground parking structure ahead and turned into the entrance at the last possible moment. The first cruiser didn't react in time, continuing forward as the second cruiser followed, their headlights sweeping across the concrete walls as they descended the ramp.
Each turn with the sedan proved to be a challenge as its bulky frame struggled with the tight corners. The officers in the only vehicle chasing me assumed that I had made a mistake in turning into the parking lot as the only way out was going back to the top. However, this was a part of my plan.
Hitting the brakes, the officers weren't prepared for the sedan to began to speedily reverse into them. The driver barely has any time to hit his own brakes before he slams into the back of the sedan. Their airbags deploy just in time to keep them from slamming their heads into the dashboard.
I jump out of the driver seat, checking the on the officers. Both had a pulse and were unconscious. They would walk away with a concussion at best. With no time to spare, I rush to the Curator, who was back in the backseat from the crash. I waste no time in healing him, but not to the point where he would wake and fight me while I still had to evade the police.
I pick the nearest car behind the wreck and send an electric jolt, hot wiring the vehicle. Thankfully, it was similarly fast as I got out of the parking lot as soon as other police cruisers pull in and surround the building. Slowing down to match the speed limit, I carefully follow traffic to not attract attention to myself.
They had lost me. Now I needed to make sure they stayed lost.
I avoided the major roads and took a long route around the city, deliberately staying away from the Talon safe zone until I was certain there was no police presence nearby. Only then did I approach the designated meeting point.
It was an abandoned industrial facility on the outskirts of the city, far enough from the main roads that nobody had any reason to visit it. I drove the new vehicle inside and parked it behind the main building before opening the rear door and carrying the Curator into one of the empty rooms.
An old chair sat against the wall. I placed him in it and secured him so that he would not collapse when he eventually regained consciousness. After checking his pulse one more time, I looked at my watch.
Nyx would arrive soon. She was the person responsible for determining what would happen to the Curator next. My part in this operation had been to capture him and deliver him. I had done my part.
I pulled a chair across from the Curator and sat down. For the first time that night, I let out my breath that I didn't know I was holding and began to calm down. I could see how Ana and Rein got gray hairs so early on.
Several miles away, the police had returned to the mansion.
The surviving guards had been gathered together, given medical and placed under interrogation. The investigators wanted to know exactly what had happened, but the answers became increasingly difficult to believe as each witness told his version of the story.
One officer sat across from the first guard.
"Tell me exactly what happened."
The guard swallowed before answering. "He walked through the gunfire."
The officer frowned. "Explain."
"We shot him."
"And?"
"He kept walking."
The officer wrote something down. "How many times was he hit?"
"I don't know."
"Give me an estimate."
The guard thought for several seconds. "Enough to kill anyone else."
The officer looked up. "Did he fall?"
"No."
"Did he slow down?"
"No."
The officer dismissed him and brought in another guard.
"What happened?"
The second guard shook his head. "You don't understand. He was too fast."
"How fast?"
"I couldn't see him."
"That doesn't explain anything."
"It is the only answer I have."
The officer sighed. "Try again."
The guard leaned forward. "He was faster than a car."
The officer stopped writing.
"Faster than a car?"
"Yes."
The next guard provided an even stranger account.
"He disappeared."
The officer frowned. "Disappeared?"
"One second he was standing in front of us, and the next second he was behind us. It was like he controlled the darkness."
The officer rubbed his forehead before bringing in another witness.
"What did Dagger do?"
The guard stared at the table.
"He stopped the bullets."
"We already know that."
"No. You don't understand. He let us shoot him."
The officer slowly lowered his pen.
"Why?"
"Because he wanted us to know that it didn't matter."
By the time another guard was brought in, the story had already begun changing with every retelling. One claimed Dagger moved so quickly that he appeared to be in several places at once. Another insisted that he had watched Dagger walk directly through a wall of gunfire without bothering to dodge. A third swore that Dagger had appeared beside him without making a sound, and that he had not even realized he had been defeated until he was already on the floor.
Outside, investigators continued documenting the mansion. Weapons were catalogued, evidence was collected, and the damage was photographed, but none of the reports could fully capture what had happened inside. There were too many witnesses and too many contradictory accounts.
None of the officers believed every detail. Their training did, however, teach them one thing that they had to believe in. Every witness had described the same terrifying presence. Their evidence pointed to the undeniable fact that until further evidence was collected, Dagger wasn't human.
Their lead was gone, almost as if he was a rumor. Vanishing into a dead-end parking garage like he never existed.