Time didn't slow down, it split apart.
Lilly moved first—Not out of fear. Not out of instinct. But because the rage had finally grown teeth, and it was starving.
She threw herself between Sam and the woman in white just as the device in the woman's palm exploded in a pulse of white-hot light.
Sam cried out behind her, dragged backward by the shockwave, but Lilly stood her ground.
"Come on, then," Lilly rasped, voice shredded by smoke and betrayal. "Let's finish it."
The Woman in White smiled, slow and surgical."No, darling," she whispered. "You still don't get it."
She didn't strike Lilly. She turned—
—and aimed for Sam.
A scream ripped from Lilly's throat as she dove—barely, barely—pushing Sam out of the way. The blast skimmed Lilly's shoulder instead, sizzling through jacket and flesh alike.
Pain blinded her. Hot, Blistering, but it was nothing compared to the terror of seeing Sam limp, dazed, struggling to get up.
"You leave her out of this!" Lilly snarled.
The Woman in White laughed—a sound like glass breaking underwater.
"She's already part of it, she chose you, she chose the murderer."
Ava staggered up behind them, wiping blood from her mouth, eyes flickering with something almost close to... fear?
Maybe even she knew they were in way over their heads now.
Maybe even she knew there was no walking away from this war.
Sam struggled to her feet, blinking through the haze. Her hand found Lilly's, tight, grounding. Unshakable.
"I'm not leaving you," Sam croaked.
"Not planning to," Lilly gritted back, pulling Sam behind her.
The Woman in White circled them lazily, like a predator savoring the last moments before the kill.
"You killed my brother," she said to Lilly, voice velvet-lined venom. "You stole my future. My family. And now?"
Her hand crackled with another pulse of deadly light.
"Now I'm going to watch you lose everything you love."
Lilly didn't even hesitate.
"Then you better kill me first," she snarled.
The air burned between them.
The world was a fuse waiting for a spark.
And just when it seemed like it was all going to detonate—
Ava, of all people—Ava—stepped forward.
"You want revenge?" Ava spat, blood on her teeth. "Fine. But you'll have to go through me first."
Lilly and Sam froze.
The Woman in White's smile turned colder.
"Oh," she purred. "I plan to."
The ground trembled.
The world buckled.
And all hell broke loose.