The world didn't explode; it shattered.
The sound of the motel window imploding was like a thunderclap in the tiny, cramped space of Room 14. Shards of glass rained down like jagged diamonds, glittering in the flickering yellow light of the bedside lamp.
The woman in the tactical jacket—the hunter—spun around, her suppressed pistol tracking toward the window. But she was too slow.
A heavy, leather-clad boot caught her square in the chest, sending her flying backward into the cheap dresser. CRACK. The wood splintered, and she slumped to the floor, the air driven from her lungs in a wheezing gasp.
Ren didn't wait to see who it was. He didn't wait to see if it was a friend or another monster. He lunged for the floor, his fingers scraping against the stained carpet until they closed around the cold, heavy weight of the stolen revolver.
"Jace! Get up!" Ren screamed, his voice raw.
Jace was already moving, despite the blood blooming on his side. He scrambled toward the shadow that had just breached the window.
It was Klaus.
The "Ghost of Berlin" didn't look like a savior. He looked like a demon. His face was streaked with rain and grease, and he held a serrated combat knife in one hand and a heavy-duty stun baton in the other.
"I told you six hours," Klaus growled, his eyes scanning the room. "But the hunters in this city don't have clocks. They have bloodhounds."
"You... you came back," Ren panted, holding the revolver with both hands, the barrel shaking as he pointed it at the fallen woman.
"I came back for my car," Klaus lied, though the way he stepped in front of Ren and Jace suggested otherwise. "Now, move! There are three more of them in the parking lot, and they aren't here to negotiate."
They burst out of the broken window, bypassing the front door entirely. The rain hit Ren's bare chest like needles, the cold shocking his system.
"Over there!" a voice barked from the darkness of the "Silver Swan" lot.
A flashlight beam cut through the downpour, catching Ren in its glare. Pop-pop. Two muffled gunshots bit into the brickwork of the motel wall, inches from Jace's head.
"Klaus! They have us pinned!" Jace shouted, ducking behind a rusted vending machine.
Ren felt the weight of the revolver in his hands. It felt wrong. It felt heavy. It felt like the opposite of a piano key. But then he looked at Jace—at the blood on his shirt, at the way he was breathing in jagged hitches—and something inside Ren snapped.
The "Golden Boy" didn't just die. He was incinerated.
Ren stepped out from behind the vending machine. He didn't aim like a soldier. He aimed like a conductor. He found the rhythm of the rain, the rhythm of the flashlight's swing, and he pulled the trigger.
BOOM.
The revolver's kick nearly dislocated his shoulder, but the bullet smashed into the headlight of a nearby SUV, sending a spray of sparks and glass into the air. The flashlight beam dropped as the hunter dived for cover.
"Holy—" Jace stared at Ren, his eyes wide. "Ren, you actually shot!"
"I'm keeping the beat, Jace!" Ren yelled back, his ears ringing from the blast. "Move! To the car!"
They scrambled into the sedan as Klaus floored the accelerator, the tires spitting gravel as they tore out of the "Silver Swan" lot.
As the neon sign of the motel faded into the rainy distance, the silence inside the car was deafening. Ren was still clutching the revolver, his knuckles white, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"You did it, Ren," Jace whispered, reaching over to gently take the gun from Ren's hands. He tucked it into his waistband, then pulled Ren into his side. "You saved us."
Ren leaned his head against Jace's shoulder, the adrenaline beginning to fade into a bone-deep exhaustion. "I didn't save us. I just changed the music."
Klaus looked at them through the rearview mirror, his expression unreadable. "Don't get comfortable. That hunter back there? She saw your face, Ren. And she saw mine. We aren't just fugitives anymore."
He pulled a small, burner phone from his pocket and tossed it onto Ren's lap.
"The 5-million-euro bounty just went international," Klaus said, his voice flat. "Your father just leaked your 'disappearance' to the press. Every airport, every train station, every border crossing... your face is on every screen in Europe."
Ren picked up the phone. On the screen was a news headline from the Berlin Tagesspiegel:
"SON OF BILLIONAIRE ARTHUR LAURENT KIDNAPPED BY ARMED DRUMMER: 5M REWARD FOR SAFE RETURN."
Ren looked at the photo of himself—the "Golden Boy" in his tuxedo—and then at Jace, who was being branded a kidnapper.
"He's turning the whole world against us," Ren whispered.
"Let them watch," Jace said, his voice dropping into that dark, beautiful rumble that Ren loved. "They can watch us run. But they'll never see us play for him again."
Klaus pulled the car onto a dark, unmarked dirt road that led toward the dense forest of the Black Forest.
"Where are we going?" Ren asked.
"To the only place money can't reach," Klaus said. "The Underground. But to get in, you have to leave Ren Laurent behind. Are you ready to become nobody?"