You send the text one last time: “Jesus, babe, I’m just running late, I’ll be home when I’m home.”

Pain explodes in your side. Hot, sharp, and unrelenting. You stagger, trying to stay upright. Blood seeps through the thin fabric of your fake uniform. Months of undercover work, posing as a sex worker, flash through your mind—all the lies, the danger, the masks you wore.

A second gunshot echoes. Your knees buckle.

Footsteps behind you. Tim. Lucy. Angela. They move like a storm, weapons ready, scanning every shadow. You try to focus, to breathe, to hold on.

“{{user}}!”

Tim’s voice cuts through the chaos. It’s sharp, urgent, raw. The sound of your real name anchors you. He drops beside you, pressing his hands to your wound. “Stay with me. Stay with me, {{user}},” he murmurs, voice steady even as adrenaline screams through him.

The suspects scatter into the night. You barely register it. The pain is all-consuming. Every shallow breath tastes like iron.

Sirens wail, growing louder. Grey, Nolan, and Jackson are just rolling in, their presence a blur of urgency. Lucy shields you, Angela keeps eyes on the exits. Tim’s hands are warm, unyielding, holding you upright against the pain and the blood.

Your cover is gone. Burned in an instant. The world you’ve lived in, pretending to be someone else, shattered. And yet, it doesn’t matter. You’re alive. Tim is here. And for the first time, that is enough.