"Don't leave me!" I screamed as the black sedan spat gravel and pulled away. Ignacio didn't even turn his head. He leaned back, thumbed his cuff, and smiled at the woman beside him like she was a prize he hadn't unwrapped yet. "Veronika," he said without looking, "this is where we part ways." "Stay," I said. "Now." He laughed. "You really think this is about you?" The woman in his lap kissed his cheek. He kissed her back with a practiced tenderness meant for cameras, not for me. "Run," he told the driver. "Now." The driver slammed the accelerator. The sedan slid into the street and vanished. The taillights smeared like a confession. Something moved in the alley behind me. "Goddamn it," I said. "Not now." A figure lunged—the skin mottled, the eyes gone empty. An infected. Then three more came, stumbling out from between dumpsters and shuttered shop doors. "You're one of them," I muttered. "Great timing." I forced my palms down to the puddle at my feet. Water rose like obedient glass, thin at first, then gathering mass. I didn't need to think about physics. I only needed to want it. "Stay down!" I barked. The nearest infected crashed through a water blade that folded around his neck. The blade cut clean. He hit the ground like a puppet whose strings were gone. "Veronika!" a voice shouted from beyond the alley. "Are you— "Don't come in," I snapped. I slashed again