Chapter 1
The gunshot doesn’t echo the way Michelle expects it to, instead it disappears into the thick walls of the bank vault like the sound itself is ashamed to exist, leaving behind only the smell of metal and the sudden understanding that nothing about this is controllable anymore.
She freezes.
Not because she’s scared of the noise, but because Saxton doesn’t flinch at all.
He stands there calmly, almost politely, holding the gun low, his face smooth and blank like he’s waiting for someone else to react first so he can decide how he feels about it.
The security guard collapses slowly, knees giving out before the rest of him, his shoulder hitting the marble floor with a soft, humiliating sound that makes Michelle’s stomach twist harder than the blood does.
This was not supposed to happen.
She knows that thought is useless now, but it still rises up anyway, sharp and desperate, like it might rewind time if she thinks it hard enough.
The vault door is still open.
The alarm hasn’t gone off yet.
There is a suspended moment where the world seems to be holding its breath, watching them, deciding what kind of people they are going to be.
Michelle feels everyone who has ever looked down on her watching from inside her chest.
Her hands are shaking so badly she presses them together, fingers digging into skin, nails biting down until it hurts enough to keep her upright.
Saxton finally looks at her.
Really looks.
His eyes flick over her face, her posture, the way her weight is shifted back like she’s already trying to leave without admitting it.
“Don’t do that,” he says quietly.
“Do what?” she asks, though her voice comes out thinner than she wants it to.
“Disappear.”
Embarrassment crawls up her neck, hot and exposed, because he’s right and because he always knows when she’s about to fold before she does.
She glances at the guard on the floor again, at the spreading stain that is soaking into a building designed to make people feel safe, and she hates herself for noticing how expensive the marble must be.
The alarm finally starts screaming.
Everything turns urgent and public all at once.
Red lights flash.
A recorded voice starts ordering them to lie down.
Saxton exhales like this is an inconvenience, not a catastrophe, then steps over the body without looking down and grabs the duffel bag from the open box.
“Time,” he says.
Michelle doesn’t move.
The isolation hits her fast, heavy, familiar, the same feeling she used to get as a kid when teachers would talk about “potential” like it was a gift instead of a threat.
She’s alone in this moment, even standing right next to her twin.
Saxton notices immediately.
He always does.
He crosses the distance between them in two quick steps and grips her wrist, grounding her with pressure that borders on pain, forcing her back into her body whether she wants to be there or not.
“There you are,” he says, low, almost kind.
Her legs start moving.
They run.
By the time the twins burst out the side exit into daylight, sirens are already slicing through the air, people are shouting, phones are up, and Saxton is laughing like he’s already won something she doesn’t understand yet.
That’s when she knows.
This was never just survival to him.
