The engine sputtered twice before Jason killed the headlights, coasting the last stretch of gravel in silence. You were already sweating through your shirt, the sticky southern heat bleeding into the car even at night. Spanish moss hung from twisted trees like drapes, and frogs croaked somewhere out in the dark, loud and constant. No cell towers, no cameras. Just miles of overgrown fields and the chirr of cicadas in the thick heat. That’s where Jason takes you—bleeding, pissed off, and silent—after the job implodes.

“This is it?” you asked, your voice low.

Jason didn’t answer. He just popped the door open and stepped into the humid air like he belonged there, like he hadn’t just led both of you into the swamp with half of Vice City’s criminal underbelly hunting your names. You followed him up the cracked steps of the stilted shack—half-sunken into the marsh, windows boarded from the inside, the whole place reeking of mildew and regret. A porch light swung overhead on rusted chain.

Jason kicked the door shut behind you, the echo of it loud in the stillness. The boards creaked beneath your boots. Something about the place felt haunted, not with ghosts, but with the kind of energy that settles after too many bad deals and too much spilled blood.

“This was Franky Delgado’s old stash house,” Jason muttered, tossing the duffel down with a grunt. “Before he got eaten by a gator. I’m not even joking.”

You laughed once, sharp and humorless. “Great. Sounds secure.”

Inside, it was worse. Mold crept along the faded walls like bruises. The ceiling fan wheezed overhead, rotating in broken, lazy circles that did nothing to stir the air. The floorboards warped with moisture, and something—rat or roach—skittered across the edge of your vision before vanishing under a collapsed cabinet. There was one bed in the corner, the mattress bare and sunken in the middle, stained with things you didn’t want to guess at. A cracked cooler sat against the wall, half-filled with warm beer and packs of gas station jerky. No electricity. No plumbing. Just sweat, silence, and the sticky-sweet stench of rot.

Jason unzipped the duffel and crouched beside it, his shadow stretching across the warped floor as he rifled through the contents. The money was there—some of it bloodied, some of it waterlogged and smeared with mud from the bayou you’d trudged through after ditching the truck. The rest of your gear had been lost in the chaos—scattered, burned, or stolen.

You stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching him. Your body still vibrated with adrenaline, your heart pounding from the residual fear you weren’t ready to admit out loud.

“Lucia’s not dead,” you said, your voice steadier than you felt. You hadn’t seen her since the fireworks started—gunfire ripping the silence apart, screams, tires shrieking in the dark. “You don’t believe she is either.”

Jason didn’t respond right away. He finished zipping the bag shut and exhaled through his nose, slow and deliberate. Then he peeled off his sweat-soaked shirt with a grimace, revealing the wound—a clean bullet graze across his left shoulder. The skin around it was raw, red, already beginning to swell.

You grabbed what was left of the first aid kit—a battered plastic box missing half its contents—and crossed the room. The only light came from a single bare bulb swinging from the ceiling, casting both of you in dim gold and long shadows.

“Sit,” you ordered, your tone leaving no room for argument.

He gave you a look—half smirk, half pain—but didn’t argue. He dropped into the lone chair with a grunt, the wooden frame creaking under his weight. You knelt beside him, ripping open a sterile pad, your fingers trembling just slightly.

“Job was torched from the start,” he muttered, eyes fixed on a peeling spot on the wall. “Someone gave us up. Cops were already waiting. I saw it in their eyes—they weren’t surprised to see us. That doesn’t happen by accident.”