NO MORE NORMAL ROUTINE

Nadia's POV

I don't know how long we sat like that.

Him in the chair, me on the couch with my face in my hands, the apartment sitting in a silence that had too many things moving underneath it. I was running calculations I didn't want to be running — exits, options, how fast I could get to my phone if I needed to, whether any of this was actually as serious as he was making it sound.

Then my window exploded inward.

I was on my feet before I understood what had happened — glass across the floor, curtain rod swinging, cold air rushing in where the window used to be. My brain caught up a half second later.

Gunshot.

"Down." Kane was already moving, already across the room, one hand grabbing my arm and dropping us both below the window line in a single motion. The pain from his wound didn't slow him. It didn't even register on his face.

Another shot. The wall above us cracked.

"My apartment—" I started.

"Is replaceable." His hand was firm on my shoulder, keeping me low. "You're not. Stay down and stay close."

I stayed down.

My heart was doing something violent inside my chest but my hands were steady — they were always steady, I didn't know whether to be grateful for that or disturbed by it. I pressed my back against the wall beneath the window and looked at Kane beside me, already on his phone, jaw set, eyes moving to every corner of the room with the focus of someone doing rapid threat assessment.

"We're compromised," he said into the phone. The calm in his voice was almost offensive.

"How far out are you?"

I heard the response — tinny, urgent.

"Too far," Kane said.

"Find a faster route." He ended the call.

I looked at him. "Too far. What does too far mean?"

"It means we're not staying here."

"Where are we going? This is my apartment! I have neighbors—"

"Which is why we're moving. I won't have civilian casualties because of my situation."

His situation. I filed that sentence away for later, when I had the luxury of processing things in order.

"Back exit?" he asked.

"Stairwell at the end of the hall. Leads to the back alley."

He nodded once. "Go low, go fast, don't stop. Can you do that?"

I thought about arguing.

I looked at the hole in my wall where a bullet had just been and decided arguing was for people who weren't currently being shot at.

"Yes," I said.

"Stay behind me."

"You have a hole in your side—"

"Stay behind me, Nadia."

The way he said it left no room. I stayed behind him.

We moved through the apartment in a crouch — Kane ahead, one hand pressed to the wall, the other holding his phone. I followed the line of his back and tried not to look at the window or the wall or the glass scattered across my floor like something broken that couldn't be unbroken.

The front door came in.

Not knocked. Not opened. It came off the frame with the kind of force that meant whoever was on the other side hadn't considered any option that involved asking.

Two men poured through — dark clothing, faces covered, moving with the practiced efficiency of people who did this for a living.

Kane was already up.

He moved toward them instead of away and my brain screamed at the logic of it but my mouth couldn't produce sound fast enough. The first man swung — Kane caught the arm, twisted, used the momentum to drive the man sideways into the wall with a force that shook the framed print above my bookshelf. It hit the floor. The man hit the floor with it.

The second came faster.

Kane took the hit — shoulder, not the wound, I catalogued it automatically — and didn't go down. He grabbed the front of the man's jacket and headbutted him with a cold efficiency that made my stomach turn.

The man didn't give up, he punched Kane on his stomach just beside the gunshot, which made Kane back down a bit, grabbing the spot.

"Man, look", I pointed as The man pointed a gun at Kane, then his gaze shifted directly towards me. I held my mouth with my two hands as I crawled to the wall with my butt.

Already panicking, as the man kept walking directly towards me.

The next thing I heard was a punch in the face.

The man's knees buckled.

The first one was getting back up.

"Nadia." Kane's voice was sharp without being loud. "Back exit. Now."

I didn't argue. I grabbed my bag off the couch — pure instinct, four years of never leaving without it — and moved.

The hallway was clear.

I ran low and fast, Kane right behind me, the sounds from the apartment following us — movement, something heavy falling, a voice saying something in a language I didn't recognize. I didn't look back. I hit the stairwell door with both hands and we were through it and moving down before it had finished swinging.

One flight. The back door was heavy and stiff and I threw my whole weight against it and it gave and then we were outside — cold air, narrow alley, the city humming indifferently somewhere beyond the buildings like none of this was happening.

Kane pressed us against the wall immediately. His breathing was controlled but I could see it now — the wound.

The fight had cost him.

There was fresh red seeping through the bandage at his side, dark against his ruined shirt.

"You're bleeding again," I said.

"I know."

"The sutures—"

"I know, Nadia."

He already had his phone out. "We're behind the building," he said into it. "East alley off Renner Close. Come in quiet." A pause. "How long." Another pause. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Move faster."

He ended the call and looked at me.

I pressed my back against the wall and tried to slow my breathing down to something that didn't embarrass me. My hands were shaking now — finally, belatedly, now that there was nothing immediate for them to do. I looked at them like they belonged to someone else.

There it is, I thought. The panic. Right on schedule.

I curled my fingers into my palms.

A sound at the far end of the alley. Both of us went still.

Footsteps. One person, moving fast.

Kane stepped in front of me without discussion — just moved his body between mine and whatever was coming, one hand bracing against the wall, the whole line of him going quiet and coiled in a way that reminded me suddenly and completely of what he was. Not the bleeding man on the road. Not the difficult patient in my chair.

Whatever he actually was.

The footsteps stopped.

Then headlights swept across the mouth of the alley from the street beyond — slow, deliberate, signaling.

Kane's posture shifted. Just slightly.

A black SUV rolled to a stop at the alley entrance, engine barely audible, lights cutting through the dark. Two men climbed out before it had fully stopped — moving with the kind of efficiency that didn't need to be told what to do or where to stand.

They'd clearly done this before. Closed the distance between the car and us in seconds.

The one in front was tall, sharp-eyed, with a jaw set into something that looked permanent. He took in Kane first — a fast sweep, cataloguing damage — and then his eyes moved to me and stayed there for exactly one second before returning to Kane.

"Boss," he said.

"Lev." Kane straightened. "How many did you pass on the way in?"

"Three on the east side. We handled it." Lev's voice was flat and precise. "Car's clean. We need to move."

Kane turned to me.

I was already shaking my head.

"No," I said. "No, no — I am not getting into that car. I don't know who any of you are. I don't know where you're going. I have an exam in six days and my apartment door is currently off its hinges and—"

"Nadia."

"Don't Nadia me in that voice—"

"They know where you live." He said it quietly. Without drama. The way he said everything — like the truth didn't need volume to land. "They came tonight. They'll come back. And next time I won't be there."

I stopped.

The alley was cold.

Somewhere above us a window light clicked on — a neighbor, disturbed by something, not enough to come down.

The city kept moving beyond it all.

I looked at the SUV.

I looked at Kane — at the blood seeping through his shirt, at the steadiness in his face, at the dark eyes that were watching me with something that wasn't quite patience but wasn't pressure either.

Just waiting. Like he already knew what I would decide and was giving me the space to get there myself.

I hated that he was right.

I hated all of this.

I picked up my bag, tightened the strap over my shoulder, and walked toward the car.

Lev held the door open without comment.

I got in.

Kane followed, and Lev closed the door, and the SUV pulled away from the alley smoothly and quietly, swallowing us into the dark of the city.

I stared out the window at streets I didn't recognize getting; further and further from the life I'd built and I said, very quietly, to no one in particular —

"I'm going to fail my exam."

Nobody answered.