We leave before dawn.
Not dramatically. No convoy. No last look over our shoulders. Just a quiet exit timed between night and morning, when the city hasn’t fully decided what it is yet. The streets feel suspended in that in-between state, not asleep, not awake, like they’re holding their breath as we pass through.
The car hums steadily beneath us as Damian guides it onto the highway. The sound is even. Controlled. Familiar. The streets are mostly empty, washed pale by streetlights that flicker out one by one as the sky lightens, as if the city itself is shutting down behind us. I watch familiar buildings slide past the window, their outlines softened by distance and exhaustion, edges blurred into something almost gentle.
The skyline still looms behind us.
Sharp. Unmistakable. A jagged
