Askai turned to leave, fingers flexing around the envelope in his pocket. Just as he stepped into the hallway, his phone buzzed.

  He glanced down.

  Jordan.

  But it was a blank text.

  Askai checked the message again, hoping the words would magically appear this time—but the screen stayed blank. His stomach twisted. Jordan never sent empty texts. He wasn't the type to joke or pull pranks, especially not at this hour.

  Askai typed a quick reply, then another, but both remained marked delivered, not seen. He dialled his number but there was no response. A cold ripple slid down his spine.

  He tried to steady himself—It's probably a mistake. A glitch. Jordan's phone acting up again. But the lie didn't hold. His heartbeat kicked up sharply, loud enough that he could hear it between breaths.

  Without another thought, Askai broke into a run. He needed to get back. He needed to see Jordan.

  He was moving before he realized it, pushing himself into a run, the night air slapping against his face. Panic soared in his chest, as if everything could crack with one wrong step. The nearest bus stand was a mile away—too far for someone who lived on the wrong side of fortune. Those rich brats never needed to learn the weight of distance.

  Askai, meanwhile, had only his legs and an envelope full of bills—gratefully enough for a cab if he was lucky tonight.

  His phone buzzed again. Hope flared bright and sharp— only to die when he saw the sender.

  A promotional message.

  Askai's frustration rose so suddenly it nearly choked him. He curled his hand around the phone, holding it like a lifeline and a curse in one.

  He lunged back into motion—and was blinded by a sudden wash of headlights cutting across the pavement. He stumbled, heart leaping into his throat. A cab jerked to a stop inches away, tires screaming softly against the road.

  The window rolled down, revealing a driver with tired eyes and a raised brow. "You getting in or not?"

  Askai didn't trust his voice, so he simply nodded and climbed in, shutting the door with more force than necessary. The cab smelled faintly of rain and old leather—oddly comforting, but not enough to slow the pounding in his chest.

  "To the NU dorms," he managed, breathless. "Please… hurry."

  As the city lights blurred past the windows, Askai pressed a trembling hand against his knee, fighting the rising tide of fear.

  Jordan has to be okay, he told himself. He repeated it like a prayer, though he had never believed in prayers.

  ***

  The corridor was quiet when he reached. The door to his room wasn't locked, and the moment he stepped inside, he saw the signs: Jordan's duffel bag thrown against the wall, a hoodie he used to wear back when they shared a flat together, boots caked in dried mud, and the unmistakable reek of cheap bloodied gauze wafting through the air.

  Askai's brow creased. "What the hell is all this, man—?"

  He stopped mid-sentence.

  Jordan was sitting against the wall in the narrow space between Askai's desk and bed. His face was a mess—red, swollen, one eye bruised nearly shut, lip cracked, a smear of dried blood trailing from his temple to jaw. And his shoulder—

  A sickening wave of physical shock and blazing protectiveness washed over Askai.

  "Shit." Askai dropped to his knees and opened the bottom drawer of his desk, yanking out his first aid box. "What the hell happened? You should have called me. What were you thinking, leaving me blank texts?" His voice almost broke toward the end, torn between grief and frustration.

  Jordan tried to wave it off, a smirk curling his busted lip—but even that winced into pain. "Just the usual."

  "Your shoulder's popped, and you're calling that usual?" Askai's eyes, usually guarded and cool, flashed with genuine alarm. He was already reaching for a clean, tightly rolled towel. "Did you acquire a taste for beating while I was away from the streets, Jordan? Now bite on it."

  Jordan's jaw tightened, the towel disappearing into his mouth. His good eye, though exhausted, held a defiant glint that Askai knew and loved. Askai worked with the precision of someone who had done this too many times. He braced his friend's body, his touch firm yet incredibly gentle, and then, with a sharp, smooth, utterly clinical motion, he reset the dislocation. Jordan's body arched, a strangled sound escaping the barrier of the towel, but he made no noise. He never did.

  Askai sank back on his heels, breathing out slowly, the scent of antiseptic and agony filling his lungs. A suffocating wave of guilt descended. He had been so focused on getting out, on securing a better future, that he had blindly trusted the old guard to keep Jordan safe. Now, looking at the bruised, bloody ruin of his friend, he felt the full, crushing weight of his absence.

  He peered closely. The other bruises and cuts were superficial, nothing to send the bells ringing in his head. But someone had still dared to take a direct hit on Jordan. The sheer audacity of it sent a cold, deep rage shimmering beneath Askai's composed fa?ade. He schooled his expression, locking down the dangerous emotion, knowing that in their world, visible weakness was fatal.

  He spoke, his voice low, measured, and stripped of all emotion. "Talk."

  Jordan spat the towel aside, voice ragged.

  "I went to collect from the owner of the 'Night Queen' Motel. He had borrowed from us, but then he paid Zeke's boys protection money to evade us. Thought I'd straighten it out, but that bastard…"

  "You went alone?!" Askai couldn't keep the sheer disbelief from his tone. It was the fundamental rule of the street: never go alone.

  "Didn't plan on a damn ambush. They were waiting. Those bastards played it out like a show," Jordan rasped, wincing as he coughed. "Barely slipped out alive."

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Askai meticulously cleaned the dried blood from his friend's temple, dabbing it gently with antiseptic. The deep rage beneath his cool veneer intensified, solidifying into a cold, hard resolve.

  "You should've gone in with your boys," Askai muttered, his tone laced with a biting disapproval that masked his fear. "You know the gutter mongrels like Zeke have no honor. Anyone on those streets doesn't. Why would you then be stupid enough to go alone?"

  "I don't have boys, Askai," Jordan muttered bitterly, the pain pulling at the edges of his words. "Not anymore. When you left, Valez passed even your streets to me but none of the men. Then, Zeke's guys—they started cutting in on everything. Replacing our men with theirs. Pulling off legal tricks, social favors, street intimidation—whatever worked. They had been keeping us out. I don't know which of my own boys I can trust."

  "And Moraine?" Askai asked grimly. "It is his damn job to keep that dog off your streets." The name tasted like ash on his tongue, a reminder of the powerful, merciless man who held the strings to their past and their future. There was no West End without Moraine Valez in it.

  Jordan nodded, the motion stiff and painful. "You know that Valez would rather see me dead than back me up on those streets, and I wouldn't have it any other way. He wants his money now. Wants it yesterday."

  "How much?" Askai's hand paused on the antiseptic bottle.

  "Thirty grand."

  Askai's dark brow furrowed suspiciously. "And how much do you have?"

  Jordan forced a brief, painful, almost reckless grin. "Enough for a private jet. If you can find one for sixty bucks."

  "Has Valez tried to approach you directly?"

  "Uncle Tommie is still alive. So nope." The fact that Valez hadn't shown his face meant the brutal old patriarch was still acting as a buffer. A temporary stay of execution.

  "Who is handling the Zero Street then?"

  "His lanky little snake—Coral."

  Askai knew Coral. Valez's most ambitious, least honorable lieutenant, slick as an eel and hungry for promotion. "Do you think you can ask him for a time extension?"

  "No." Jordan's voice was flat, final. "He had just been looking for reasons to put a bullet in me. Probably to flatter his master."

  The silence that followed was dense, terrifying. Thirty thousand dollars was a death sentence. Askai looked at the swollen, bruised face of the only family he had left and felt the cold, familiar steel of resolve hardening in his soul. He had traded the streets for a diploma, but the streets had just called his marker. He wouldn't lose Jordan for a piece of paper.

  Askai ran a frustrated hand through his hair, the gesture one of profound, weary resignation. He had left their flat and the chilling shadows of their past behind for a reason—to forge a life untainted by the grime and debt. Every time he went back to their shared flat, he risked losing his new identity but everytime he left, life threw another yolker at him and Askai ended up right there, hiding in his own past.

  But the reason he needed that new life, the true reason for all his tireless effort, was lying broken on the floor now. Jordan. His friend. His brother in everything but blood, tethered to him by years of shared hunger and silent survival.

  The stack of cash in his emergency stash and the one in this envelope could make up for a part of it, but it won't be enough.

  It was a humiliating realization of his own powerlessness.

  Askai sighed, the sound heavy in the bare room.

  "You're staying here tonight. But you need to lie low. The University is neutral ground—none of those gangs, not even Zeke's mongrels, would dare breach its walls. It's a sanctuary, even for scum. But dorm policies are strict. If anyone finds out you're an outsider…"

  "I'll keep my head down," Jordan promised, finally easing himself up straighter against the wall. The movement was slow, deliberate, speaking volume of the sheer physical pain, but his gaze was steady and unwavering.

  Once the shoulder was braced and the major cuts cleaned, Askai handed him a damp sponge and a clean cotton towel. He tossed over a pair of the oversized, soft gray sweatpants and a pristine white tee. "You'll have to make do with my clothes tonight. They won't fit, but they're clean."

  "Better than what I walked in with," Jordan muttered, peeling the torn, blood-stiffened remnants of his shirt away from his torso. A genuine, if painful, chuckle escaped him.

  Askai's lips curved into a faint, relief-tinged smile—the first of the night. It was a fleeting moment of their shared history, the resilience that always found a sliver of humor even in the face of disaster.

  He efficiently cleaned up the bloody rags, the motion of his hands practiced and detached, and turned to the second bed. He had always kept it ready, clean sheets folded, never truly believing it would remain empty forever. "You can take mine tonight. The new mattress would help with the bruising. I'll make do with this in the meantime."

  He pulled out the crisp cotton sheets and a thick wool blanket, starting to make his own spare bed.

  Jordan glanced up from toweling his face, a glimmer of wry amusement in his eyes. "Still finicky with the mattress, I see. Always had to have the softest thing, even when we slept on crates."

  Askai shrugged, drying his hands with a towel, a small smile on his lips. "Old habits die hard. Comfort is a fleeting luxury, better to take it when you can get it."

  There was a pregnant beat of quiet, the kind that often fell between them, heavy with unspoken history and shared dreams. Askai knew the moment he broke it, he was walking into dangerous, hopeful territory.

  "You know," Askai said, his voice softer, almost tentative, "I've been thinking about Kael."

  Jordan's attention snapped toward him completely, the easygoing amusement vanished, replaced by a deep, weary seriousness.

  "There's this place—the Regale Foundation Home. They've got an orphanage wing. Wouldn't it be something if we could get him there? Get him away from that old rickety orphanage, let him just… be a kid?"

  Askai sounded genuinely hopeful, but Jordan gave him a long, tired look that spoke volumes of disillusionment. He knew where the impulse was coming from: the need to save the one innocent thing they had left, the small boy they both looked out for.

  Then Jordan smiled—a little sadly, and infinitely wisely. "You've been here too long, Askai."

  Askai blinked, confused by the abrupt shift.

  Jordan leaned back against the wall, the effort pulling a wince across his face. "Being this close to gold and porcelain... to these clean, untouchable people... it gets to you. Makes you think the gates will open if you knock hard enough. Makes you dream that justice is actually real." God knew he once dreamed too but once those illusions shattered, the shards cut him too deep.

  Askai nodded slowly, his eyes dropping to the floor, where the faint scent of Jordan's blood still lingered, a brutal reminder of the world outside the college gates. "Can't help it."

  "You can dream. That's how we live," Jordan conceded, his voice softening slightly. "Just don't hope. Not in that way. Not for a handout. You reveal too much of what you value, it'll all be used against you when the time comes. And it will come."

  Askai looked away, the guilt in his chest twisting like a knife. The time it took to finish his education felt like an unbearable stretch of years. "By the time I get things together—land a job, finish my degree—Kael'll be grown. He'll lose the best years. Like us."

  Jordan's voice quieted, becoming dangerously low. "You forget one thing, Askai. This would happen only if you make it to the end of college. We still haven't made it out of the woods. The debt is a noose, and Valez is the hangman, we can't forget it - ever."

  Askai didn't respond. The weight of that expectation—the fear of failing not just himself, but the only people who mattered—settled like a stone in his stomach.

  Jordan laid back on the new, soft mattress with a grunt of pain and relief. "You've barely started, Kai. The only way out is through. Stay away from the Elites and their games. Stay in the clear. Make it count."

  Askai nodded, walking over to the emergency stash. He meticulously tucked the handful of bills he had considered using for Kael's application into the stack, sticking the envelope back up. The money was a symbol of hope, now once again locked away, reserved for pure, brutal survival.

  He crossed the room and gently pulled the spare blanket over Jordan's bruised frame, tucking him in like he would Kael.

  "I'll nap for an hour," Askai muttered, glancing at his watch. "Then I need to catch up on assignments. It's going to be a long night."

  As he laid down on the spare, harder bed, eyes closing for a brief, desperate breath of peace, Jordan's voice drifted to him one last time, a ragged whisper in the dark.

  "Don't lose this, Kai. Don't let them take it from you."

  "I won't," Askai murmured, the vow a fierce, silent prayer in the sudden, deep quiet.

  And in the heavy silence that followed, he let the obsidian darkness of the room dim around him, the ache in his limbs pulling him under—if only for a while, before the long night began.