Gatehound: No Gate No Break

The city was loud tonight. Loud with sirens. With shifting headlights. With silence no one knew how to hear.

Kade didn't sleep. He hadn't slept since Violet disappeared.

Her name was everywhere now. On news tickers. In whispers. In the mouths of people who didn't know her. Armed robbery gone wrong. Violet Reyne. Dangerous. Possibly armed. Wanted for questioning in the deaths of three accomplices.

But none of them knew her like he did.

She played guitar on rooftops and cried when stray cats got hit by cars. She once gave her last ten bucks to a stranger outside a pharmacy. Violet wasn't a killer. She was just broken.

And people don't run from the police because they're guilty. Sometimes they run because they're scared.

Kade limped through another alley, calling her name. Again.

"Vi? It's me. Please. If you're there… just give me something. A sign. Anything."

Nothing answered.

He passed a cracked mirror behind an abandoned bar. And for a moment—he thought he saw someone in it. A bald man. Standing behind him.

He turned. No one.

Then—

"Looking for someone?" a voice asked.

Kade spun. The man was real now. Dressed in a long dark coat. Bald. Calm eyes. Something unnatural flickered behind them—like they saw more than the world.

"Who the hell are you?" Kade asked, instantly on guard.

"Call me Salvador."

"...Do I know you?"

"No," Salvador said. "But I know where she is."

Kade took a step back.

"What do you want?"

Salvador just smiled. The kind of smile mirrors crack under.

"You'll see soon enough."

Violet woke up in a back alley soaked in oil and pain.

The sunrise hadn't even touched the sky yet. Everything still felt dead.

Her body screamed. Every muscle. Every nerve.

She rolled over, vomiting bile into a gutter. Her lip was split. Her ankle felt half-shattered. Her arm was burned from the inside out.

She could barely stand, but she forced herself to move.

She had to.

Somewhere in her, the pain was familiar. Like an old song you didn't want to remember, but couldn't stop humming.

The sign for a 24-hour pharmacy flickered down the block.

She staggered toward it like a corpse on strings.

The glass door shattered quietly.

The pharmacist wouldn't be back until 8 a.m.

She climbed through the window and stumbled behind the counter, grabbing gauze, painkillers, antiseptic, burn cream. She collapsed on the tile floor behind a shelf and started patching herself up in the flickering dark.

She didn't cry.

Not this time.

But she wanted to.

It was almost dawn when she limped out of the broken store, hoodie pulled up, backpack slung over her shoulder.

The streets were quiet.

And then she heard something.

A voice. Weak. Familiar.

"...Vi...?"

She turned.

There—slumped in a pool of blood behind a row of trash bins—was Kade.

Her breath stopped.

"Kade?!"

She ran over, almost falling beside him. His face was swollen. One eye shut. Blood dripped from his nose. His jacket was torn open. Cuts littered his arms.

His lips curled weakly into a smile.11q

Her hands hovered over his chest, helpless. "Who did this? Who—?"

"Guy... bald... creepy voice..."

Her heart dropped.

"Salvador..."

Kade coughed, spitting red. His voice was fading. "I don't care what they say about you... You're not a monster..."

"Stop talking," Violet whispered. "You're gonna be okay. I'm gonna get help, I—"

He closed his eyes. "...Glad you're okay..."

"...Kade?"

His breathing slowed.

Violet's heart cracked open. Guilt wrapped around her chest like a noose. She sat in the cold, shaking, hands covered in his blood.

This was her fault.

If she hadn't gotten involved in the heist.

If she hadn't run.

If she hadn't opened that Gate.

Everyone around her either died... or bled.

She stood up. Walked.

The world blurred.

Somewhere, she found herself on the edge of an overpass. Wind howled through her hoodie. Her fingers trembled as they curled around the railing.

She looked down.

It would be easy.

One step. Then silence. Then peace.

Then—

"Hey!"

A voice.

A guy jogged toward her. Early twenties. Hoodie. Kind face.

"You good?" he asked.

She didn't answer.

He stopped a few feet away. Didn't get closer.

"I've seen you before," he said.

"I am that girl. On the news."

"Hmmmm. Nah, I have seen you somewhere else."

Violet turned her head. "So? Gonna scream? Call the cops?"

"No," he said simply. "You look like someone who doesn't need noise. Just... someone to stay."

She blinked.

"You don't know me," she muttered.

"Nope. But I know what it looks like when someone wants to jump."

"...You think I won't?"

"I think you might," he said. "But I also think if you were a killer... you wouldn't be standing there thinking about anything at all."

Violet's lip trembled.

"I got people killed."

"Or maybe someone made you think that."

She turned away, tears threatening.

"Why are you even talking to me?"

He shrugged. "Because you're still breathing."

"Don't tell me anybody about this, okay?"

"You got it boss."

After a long pause, she stepped down from the edge. Her legs shook. Her throat was tight.

She turned to thank him. But the guy was already gone. She looked around. No footsteps. No trace.

Just a strange… pressure in the air.

Like something big had been standing there. Watching.

She reached into her pocket.

The red card was still there.

Mr. Q's card.

Her fingers trembled. Then steadied.

She raised it to her mouth.

"...I need help."