Episode 24: The Ghost with a Gun
Click.
The sound was soft, deadly—yet it crashed through the silence like a thunderclap.
Aaniya froze mid-breath. Her stomach turned to ice as dread coiled around her throat, squeezing until she could barely swallow. Slowly—so painfully slowly—she turned.
And the world tilted.
Because the man standing there, the one holding the gun steady at Suleman's head, wasn't a stranger from the shadows.
It was a face she knew.
A face she once trusted.
Her lips moved before her mind caught up. "You…"
The smile on his face was all teeth and venom. "Miss me?"
Suleman didn't flinch. Not an inch. His eyes locked on the man with a stare sharp enough to cut steel, the muzzle of the gun pressing against his temple.
"You," Suleman said, his voice low, threaded with a fury so controlled it made Aaniya's skin prickle. "Of course."
The man chuckled—a sound that didn't belong in a place like this, in a storm like this. It slithered through the air like poison.
"I told them you'd come crawling back," he said. "Like a rat. And here you are."
"Who is he?" Aaniya's voice cracked, shattering the taut silence. She looked from one to the other, her heart slamming so hard she thought it might burst. "Suleman—who is he?"
The man's smile widened. "Didn't he tell you, sweetheart?" His voice dipped, oily-smooth, mocking. "Or has he been too busy playing hero?"
"Enough," Suleman bit out, his tone lethal.
"Or what?" The man leaned in, the barrel kissing Suleman's skin. "You going to kill me? Again?"
A flash of something—rage, guilt—flickered in Suleman's eyes. But he didn't speak.
Aaniya felt the floor tilt beneath her. Her lungs burned. Kill him… again?
Her voice was barely a whisper. "What… what does he mean?"
Neither answered. The storm outside roared, lightning ripping the dark in jagged white lines, and for a heartbeat, the world held its breath.
Then—chaos.
Suleman moved.
Fast.
Too fast for the eye to follow.
One second the gun was at his head, the next there was a sharp crack as he slammed his elbow back, knocking the weapon aside. A shot exploded—deafening, blinding—a spray of splinters from the crate above Aaniya's head.
"Down!" Suleman roared, grabbing her and shoving her behind cover as the warehouse erupted in noise—shouts, gunfire, boots pounding against concrete.
The man was gone from her sight, melting into the shadows as more figures poured in through the broken door like wolves drawn to blood.
Aaniya's breath tore in and out of her lungs, her hands clutching splintered wood as bullets sang through the air, sparks flashing off metal. The acrid stench of gunpowder burned her nose, mixed with the damp rot of rain and rust.
Suleman crouched low, gun raised, movements precise, deadly calm even in the storm of bullets. He fired—once, twice—each shot a thunderclap that rattled her bones. A man screamed and went down. Another dropped behind a pillar.
"Stay down!" he barked without looking back.
"I—" Her voice broke as wood shattered inches from her face. She flinched, heart crashing against her ribs.
The echo of laughter sliced through the chaos—the same voice as before, rich with amusement, dark with promise.
"You can't run forever, Suleman!" it called from somewhere in the maze of shadows. "Not this time!"
Suleman's jaw tightened. His gun swung toward the sound—but too late. Another shot cracked, ricocheting off metal, and Aaniya screamed as a shard nicked her arm. Pain flared hot, sharp.
He heard it. He was there in an instant, his hand gripping her wrist, eyes burning like fire in the dark. "You're bleeding."
"I'm fine," she gasped, even as her fingers shook.
His thumb brushed against her skin—rough, warm, grounding. For a split second, the storm faded, and all she felt was the sear of his touch, the steel of his presence.
Then another bullet whined past, snapping the moment like glass.
Suleman cursed low under his breath. "We're leaving."
"How?!" she choked out. "They're everywhere—"
"Not for long." His voice was ice now, cold and certain. He reached behind his back, pulled something small, metallic—
A smoke grenade.
Aaniya's eyes widened. "What are you—"
He pulled the pin.
Tossed it.
The world vanished in a roar of white.
Smoke billowed like a living thing, thick, choking, swallowing the room whole. Shouts erupted, wild, panicked. Footsteps thundered.
"Close your eyes," his voice rasped in her ear, his arm locking around her waist. She felt herself lifted, dragged—his strength terrifying, anchoring—through the haze as the warehouse became hell.
She coughed, choked, clung to him as he crashed through the side door, boots pounding down a corridor slick with rain. Bullets followed—wild, blind—but the smoke held.
The night hit them like a slap. Rain lashed her face, cold and merciless. The sky split with lightning, painting everything in savage white.
"Run," he snarled, shoving her forward, his own steps never faltering.
They plunged into the storm again, hunted by shadows and ghosts of the past, the echo of that voice chasing them through the dark:
"You can't hide forever!"
But the worst part—the part that froze Aaniya's blood even as her legs burned—was the one question pounding louder than the rain in her head:
Who was that man?
And what did he mean by again?
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