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No scream.

No final confession.

No dramatic last word.

Just his body disappearing backward into the black space beyond the balcony.

A second passes.

Then a distant impact echoes up from far below.

Soft.

Horrible.

Final.

Silence follows.

Complete.

Unreal.

I stand frozen in the living room, towel clutched around me, tears cooling on my face.

The tracker sits near my bare foot, tiny and black and harmless-looking.

I stare at it like it might move.

Like it might open its little plastic mouth and explain how everything got this fucked.

Dagger stands at the railing, naked, soaked, bleeding, breathing like an animal. His shoulders rise and fall hard beneath the city lights while one hand grips the metal where Noir just went over.

For a long second, he doesn’t turn around.

Maybe he can’t.

Maybe if he looks at me, the world becomes real again.

My knees finally give out.

Not all the way.

I catch myself on the edge of the couch, but the movement makes Dagger turn instantly.

The rage is still there.

So is the blood.

So is the horror.

But underneath all of it, he looks destroyed.

Completely destroyed.

He crosses the apartment slowly, every step leaving bloody water across the floor.

I want to say something.