Lili barely made it through the front door of her house. She didn’t bother turning on the lights—she didn’t need to see the wreck she’d become. Every movement was a war against the pain, her shoulder a furnace of agony that pulsed harder with every heartbeat. She stumbled into the bathroom, gripping the sink for balance as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Pale. Bloodied. Hollow-eyed behind the remnants of smeared makeup and sweat. With gritted teeth, she peeled off the shredded remains of her coat and corset, revealing the angry, festering wound beneath.
Dark veins had spread further from the bullet wound, snaking like rot beneath her skin. The sight made her breath hitch. She grabbed the antiseptic, the needle, the thread. Her hands trembled as she cleaned the area, gasping at the sting, jaw clenched tight enough to crack.
Once the bandage was finally wrapped around her shoulder, blood already beginning to seep through the gauze, she took a long, shaky breath. Then another. She forced her hand into her pocket and pulled out the earpiece. Slid it in. Activated it.
Her voice, when it came, was low and raw. “Is it done, Firefreak?” she asked, slumping back against the bathroom wall as the shadows in her vision began to blur.
The silence on the other end stretched for just a moment too long.
A faint crackle answered first—then Notori’s voice filtered through, lower and rougher than usual, as if the night had taken its toll on him too.
“It’s done.” A pause, heavy with meaning. “They won’t be shipping those bullets again. Not from that dock.”
Lili closed her eyes, exhaling slow and shallow. The pain dulled slightly—either from exhaustion or from hearing what she needed.
“Good,” she muttered. “That’s one less nest of rats to worry about.”
“You’re running out of time.” The words weren’t said with cruelty, but with something colder—certainty. “Tell me when you got hit. Tell me how bad it is.”
Lili looked at her reflection—saw the shadows etched beneath her eyes, the pallor of her skin, the sheen of sweat clinging to her brow. The bandages on her shoulder were already soaked through, a sick, dark red blooming beneath the gauze. She bared her teeth in a bitter smile, more defiance than strength, and muttered: “That’s not your concern.”
“It became mine the moment you became useful,” Notori shot back. “If you drop, we lose ground. Simple as that.”
Lili’s jaw clenched, but she didn’t argue. Instead, her voice cut in low, weighted with something colder than sarcasm: “Give that damn bullet to Helena.” A pause. “If she finds a cure… I want one.”
The silence on the other end stretched longer than before. Then:
“You’ll get it,” Notori said. “But don’t waste whatever time you’ve got left waiting. Move. Fight. We’ll need you.”
Lili gave a quiet snort, almost a laugh. “Oh, I’ll keep moving. I don’t plan on dying yet.”
But as she shut off the line and braced herself against the sink, her reflection wavered, blurred by the tears she refused to let fall.
Her time was bleeding out slowly—but she would burn it all, every last second, if it meant dragging them down with her.
***
Notori flew in through the open window, his landing silent despite the weight of exhaustion hanging off his shoulders. He barely had time to straighten before he was met by a pair of unwavering gazes.
Colin and Astonia stood in the dim light of the room, waiting. The air between them crackled.
“You took your time,” Colin muttered, voice lined with restrained anger.
Notori smirked as he set a heavy metal box on the table. The dull clunk it made echoed through the quiet room.
“Needed to make sure we had the right cargo,” he said. “And… I wasn’t working alone.”
That earned a subtle shift in Astonia’s expression. Notori caught it.
“She was there,” he added. “The one you were both so eager to find.”
Colin’s eyes flickered red. Just for a heartbeat. But that was enough.
Notori’s smile sharpened. “You still planning to deal with her your way? Because if so… now’s the time.”
Colin’s jaw clenched. Astonia looked at the closed box, then finally at Notori. “How bad is she?” she asked softly.
Notori’s grin faded slightly. “Bad enough. But still standing.” He paused. “Still fighting.”
Astonia touched the box as if it were something fragile and volatile. “We’ll get to work.”
“You’ll need to,” Notori said.
Neither of the older couple responded. Notori turned toward the window again. “I held up my end,” he said, halfway through the frame. “Don’t make me regret it.”
The moment Notori vanished into the night, silence settled. Astonia rested her hand on the sealed metal box, fingers trembling just slightly, though her expression remained composed.
Colin stood near the window with distant gaze. “Too much time’s passed.”
Astonia didn’t look at him. “Time doesn’t matter.”
He turned slowly. “We let her grow in it. Let her become… what she is now.”
Astonia’s jaw tightened. “We didn’t let anything happen. We made a choice. Or maybe… maybe we only delayed the consequences.”
A beat of silence stretched between them, heavy with memory neither dared to name.
“And now?” Colin asked, voice lower. “Do you still believe she can be reached?”
Astonia finally looked up, something unreadable in her eyes. “What I believe doesn’t matter. What’s done—what she is now—isn’t ours to change.” She tapped the box. “But we can still decide how it ends.”
Colin stepped closer. Astonia unlatched the box and opened it, revealing rows of bullets glinting coldly under the low light.
“Do you think she knows who she really is?” he asked after a moment.
Astonia stared down at the bullets. “I think, she’s starting to.”
***
The heavy oak door closed behind Fosin with a dull, final thud as he stepped into the dimly lit office. Shadows clung to the corners like lingering threats, while the faint haze of cigar smoke curled lazily through the stale air, mixing with the sharp scent of spilled whiskey that stained the heavy carpet. Torin sat behind his massive desk, scanning a series of reports spread before him like pieces of a fractured puzzle demanding to be solved.
“Dock fire,” Torin began, his voice low and gravelly. “Word is the entire shipment went up in flames before it even had a chance to dock properly.”
Fosin stepped closer, his brow furrowed with concern. “Our men say it wasn’t an accident. Someone set it on purpose.”
Torin’s eyes flicked up, locking onto his son’s. “At least it wasn’t our shipment that burned.”
A grim nod from Fosin. He swallowed hard, then asked cautiously, “What about Lili?”
Torin’s jaw tightened, a muscle twitching in silent frustration. “That’s the real problem.”
“Unusual silence,” Fosin pressed, voice quieter now. “No updates. No calls. Nothing. Not like her.”
Torin’s finger tapped impatiently on the desktop. “She’s usually the first to report back. If she’s silent, something’s wrong. Or worse — she’s hiding something.”
Fosin hesitated only a moment before pulling out his phone, the cold glow of the screen illuminating his tense expression. “I’m calling her.”
Torin’s gaze didn’t waver from the scattered papers. “Do it.”
Fosin’s thumb hovered for a breath, then pressed the call button. The phone rang once… twice… then, just as silence crept in—voicemail.
His jaw clenched tightly, the muscles taut beneath the skin. Without hesitation, he tried again. Same result.
Torin finally looked up. “Tell me, Fosin—do you think Lili’s in trouble? Or do you think… she is the trouble?”
Fosin’s grip tightened on the phone…
***
Lili woke with a strangled gasp, her eyelids heavy as stone, every breath rasping in her throat like fire—she was burning from the inside out, drenched in sweat, her body trembling beneath the soaked sheets as if trying to shake off the weight of whatever hell had wrapped itself around her bones.
The dim light in the room seared into her eyes, and when she forced herself to turn her head, it felt like the world shifted beneath her—until she saw the unmistakable figure of Dotina standing near the doorway. With her—three men whose presence alone made it clear they weren’t here for aesthetics or pleasantries.
Dotina stood frozen for a brief moment, but long enough for the surprise to flicker across her carefully composed face. Because what lay before her wasn’t the infamous Princess of Death, the phantom storm of the underworld who wielded fear like a sword and moved through the city like a ghost with blood on her heels. What lay before her was just a woman—broken, burning, barely breathing.
Dotina’s eyes narrowed, and then her voice rang out, clipped and commanding.
“Get her up. Carefully. Now.”
The men hesitated only long enough to exchange glances—perhaps uncertain, perhaps frightened—but a single look from Dotina was all it took to break them into motion.
As hands reached for Lili, the world tilted again, shadows creeping at the corners of her vision. But still, her pride flared—she tried to push them off, tried to rise on her own, but her limbs betrayed her, weak and shaking, and her shoulder pulsed with a fresh stab of pain that nearly stole her consciousness again.
Dotina stepped closer, her heels echoing on the cold floor. “You should’ve come to me sooner,” she muttered, low enough for only Lili to hear.
Lili’s lips parted, but only a dry rasp came out, and her eyes—half-lidded and dull with pain—searched Dotina’s, something like defiance clinging to them still.
Dotina sighed and turned to lead the way. “Bring her to my hideout. And call Luro. We’ll need his hands before dawn.”
Lili faded into unconsciousness again, the last thing she heard was the word hideout—and she wasn’t sure if it meant safety or something far, far worse…
***
Fosin arrived with ten armored men to Lili’s home. The Princess of Death didn’t leave doors ajar—not unless she wanted someone dead on the threshold. Yet here the front door stood, slightly open, creaking softly as it swayed with the wind. His jaw tightened.
He gave a swift hand signal, and his men moved in with drawn weapons. Every step through the quiet halls only deepened the dread building in his chest. The apartment was dim, but not dark.
The bathroom was the first real confirmation. Blood—too much of it. Pooled and streaked across the tiles, dried in places, still damp in others. A ragged towel sat tossed on the sink, stained dark, like someone had tried—badly—to clean a wound.
Fosin didn’t say a word. He just stared for a moment longer, then turned toward her bedroom.
What they found there only twisted the knot in his gut tighter.
Her clothes—the signature black garments of the infamous Princess of Death—lay discarded on the floor, bloodied, torn. The sheets on the bed were a mess, the imprint of a body still faintly visible, but the blanket had half-fallen to the ground, the pillow abandoned there completely.
Fosin’s fingers curled into a fist. “If she’s lost—” he muttered, almost to himself.
One of the men shifted uneasily beside him.
“She didn’t leave like this by choice,” Fosin added sharply. “She either ran because she had no other option… or someone tried to take her. Either way, if the wrong people find out she’s missing, it’ll set off a chain we can’t stop.”
He turned to his men. “Sweep the building. I want every trace of where she went, what she took, who touched this place. I don’t care if you have to burn down half the block to find her trail—we will find her.”
Silence answered him, because if the Princess of Death had fallen, the kingdom beneath her was next…
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