CAN'T HIDE IT

' NO FACE IN THE MIRROR '

Hayamei picked it up and scrolled. Names. Coordinates. Photos of her mother. Of Zora. Of herself as a child—marked 'ASSET.'

Ghost stepped down from the rafters slowly. "You knew."

Zora said nothing.

"You knew, and you kept working for him," Aiyana said. "Because power tastes better than freedom."

⸻

Zora drew fast.

But Ghost was faster.

The shot rang out like a thunderclap.

Zora dropped to one knee, blood spilling from her side. She still raised her gun, tried to aim—

Hayamei walked forward and kicked it from her hand.

"You're not dying yet."

Zora spit blood. "Then finish me."

"No," Hayamei said. "You don't get the clean version. You're gonna watch everything you built fall."

Ghost picked up Zora's gun, emptied the clip, and crushed the barrel under his boot.

He looked at Hayamei.

"We gotta go. Cops'll be crawling here in ten."

She nodded—but her eyes didn't leave Zora.

"Get up," Hayamei snapped.

Zora grunted, standing with Aiyana's help. Her blood smeared the floor like a signature.

⸻

They left the warehouse in silence.

Aiyana tossed Zora into the trunk of an old black Charger.

Ghost slid into the driver's seat. "Where to?"

Hayamei looked back once.

Then whispered:

"Home."

⸻

But when they got there...

Na'Nami was gone.

⸻

The safehouse was wide open. Lights off. No blood. No signs of a struggle.

Just a crayon drawing left on the fridge.

Four stick figures.

One was Hayamei. One was Ghost.

One was Na'Nami.

And the last one?

Was a woman with yellow eyes and a smile full of teeth.

Underneath the drawing, in scribbled purple marker, was one word:

"Mommy?"

⸻

Hayamei collapsed to her knees.

Aiyana's phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

"You were never the only daughter.
See you soon.
—E."

Ghost read it over her shoulder, then locked eyes with Hayamei.

She looked hollow. Gone.

But only for a second.

Then she stood.

And said:

"She's not from our bloodline."

Aiyana's voice shook. "Then what is she?"

Hayamei grabbed her blade from the table.

"Something we left behind."
The air inside the Charger was thick—sweat, steel, silence.