Chapter 22
Kai reached the car in seconds. The driver's side door was open, the interior light casting a pale glow across the seat. His uncle was slumped against the steering wheel, his hands still gripping it like he was trying to hold on to something. The window was shattered, glass scattered across the dashboard and the pavement. Blood on his shirt. Too much of it.
Kai's hand reached out, then stopped. He didn't touch him. He couldn't.
The rage came up from somewhere deep, somewhere he'd been keeping locked since he was four years old. His hands shook with it. His vision tunneled. The street, the houses, the trees—all of it faded until there was only the car, only his uncle, only the blood.
"Kai."
Elijah's voice came from behind him. Closer now.
Kai didn't move.
"Kai," Elijah said again. He was standing at the rear of the car now, his eyes on the body inside. He took a step back, just one, his face going pale. He'd seen death before—the memory of the hotel room was burned into him—but seeing it like this, in a car on a quiet street, was different.
He forced himself to look away from the body and scan the street. His mind worked faster than his stomach, cataloging what he saw. The glass on the pavement, and the marks on the ground showing two paths.
He crouched down, studying the dirt and debris scattered across the road. Footprints. One set moved east, down the street toward the darker blocks. The other set moved north, toward the part of the district where the houses were closer together, where the lights were still on in some windows.
Kai's aunt lived north.
Elijah stood up and moved to Kai's side. "There are two paths. One east and One north."
Kai turned his head, his eyes red, his jaw tight. He was barely holding himself together. Elijah could see it—the anger pressing against the edges of him, wanting to break loose.
"The north side," Kai said, his voice rough. "That's where my aunt lives. Mai would have run that way if she could. Toward home."
"But she didn't."
Kai closed his eyes. When he opened them, the rage was still there, but something else had joined it. Focus, "No, the tracks east. That's where they took her Or where she ran. Either way, she went east."
Elijah looked down the street. The east side was darker, the streetlights fewer, the buildings older.
"I'll go east," Elijah said. "You go north. Check on your aunt and Make sure she's safe."
Kai turned to face him. "You don't know what you're walking into."
"You don't know what you're walking into either."
Kai's jaw tightened, but he didn't argue. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun. Black, compact, the kind that fit in a palm and didn't draw attention. He held it out to Elijah.
Elijah looked at the gun. He had never held one before. Never wanted to, but he looked at Kai's face, at the body in the car, at the dark street stretching east, and he took it.
The weight was wrong and cold in his hand. He tucked it into his waistband, the metal pressing against his skin.
"You have one?" Elijah asked.
Kai pulled his jacket back, showing another gun tucked against his ribs. He let the jacket fall and nodded.
"Be safe," Kai said. "Come back."
Elijah looked at his friend. The boy he'd grown up with. The man who had saved him more times than he could count. "The same to you."
Kai turned north and was gone. His body moved faster than it should have, his breathing technique carrying him down the street in a blur of movement that no normal person could match. Four years of fighting, of training, of building himself into something harder than the boy who had left this district—all of it poured into the speed that took him toward his aunt's house.
Elijah watched him for a moment, then turned east.
He breathed.
In, Hold.
The warmth in his chest bloomed. It spread through his arms, his legs, his back. The street sharpened. The distant hum of the city became a grid of sound he could read. His body lightened, the weight of exhaustion falling away.
[Ki Circulation (Level 1) - Active]
[Strength: 15 → 22.5]
[Endurance: 14 → 21]
[Defense: 13 → 19.5]
He moved.
The street blurred past him. Houses, trees, parked cars—all of it became streaks of color and shadow. His feet barely touched the pavement. Each step carried him further, faster, than any sprint should have. The wind pressed against his face, cold and sharp.
He didn't know how long he could hold it. Fifty-eight seconds, Maybe a little more. His endurance had grown, the adaptation doing its work, but he wasn't Kai. He hadn't been training for years. He had been doing this for days.
But days were enough. They had to be.
The footprints on the ground were harder to see now, the dirt giving way to pavement that held no marks. But there were other signs. A broken branch on a bush at the corner. A gate left swinging open. A door that stood ajar where every other door on the street was closed tight.
Elijah followed them, his speed carrying him deeper into the dark, the warmth in his chest burning steady.