BEGINNING

Tempest was behind him.

He heard the shift of air. Felt the pressure of a body moving at speed, decelerating too fast. He didn't see the hand. He didn't see anything except Juggernaut's face, the blank satisfaction of a man who'd done this too many times to feel anything.

Something touched his throat.

Fingers. Warm. Calloused.

Tempest's fingers.

He didn't squeeze. Not yet. He just held them there, pressing lightly against the skin, feeling the pulse hammer underneath.

Rogue's breath caught.

He'd been here before. Not this exact moment—but the edge of it. The place where time stretched out and you saw all the ways this could go wrong.

"You were one of us," Tempest said. His voice was quiet. Almost kind.

Rogue laughed. It came out cracked, dry—like his throat had forgotten how.

"I was you," he said. "Same training. Same lies. Same promises that they'd take care of me."

Tempest's fingers tightened. A fraction.

"We're not them."

"You're wearing their uniform. You're doing their work. You're holding a man's throat because someone in an office told you he was dangerous." Rogue's eyes locked on Tempest's. "What do you think you are?"

Tempest's face didn't change. But his grip did.

It loosened. Just a millimeter.

Juggernaut saw it too.

"End it," Juggernaut said. Not angry. Not urgent. Just tired, the way you get after a decade of the same thing over and over again.

Tempest didn't move.

"I said end it."

"He's just—" Tempest started.

"He's a rogue. He's a liability. He's the reason you don't sleep at night. End it."

Rogue watched the war play out on Tempest's face. The calculations. The hesitation. The fear of being the one who didn't pull the trigger.

He used to have that fear too.

He'd lost it somewhere.

The hand tightened.

Rogue felt the pressure build—thumb on one side of his neck, fingers on the other. Tempest's palm was hard against his windpipe. The room started to gray at the edges.

He looked up at Tempest. At the young eyes, the soft jaw, the twitch in his lip that said he was doing something he'd have to dream about later.

"You'll remember this," Rogue said. His voice was thin now, compressed by the pressure on his throat. "You'll think about it every night until you can't anymore. Then you'll think about it some more."

Tempest's jaw tightened.

"One day," Rogue continued, "you'll be the one on the floor. And someone your age will be holding your neck. And you'll wonder where the years went."

No sound.

No snap. No crack.

Just pressure, sustained, patient, until the blood stopped moving and the eyes stopped tracking and the heart forgot its rhythm.

Rogue went limp.

Tempest held him for three heartbeats longer than necessary. Then he let go. The body dropped to the concrete—landed like a sack of something already broken.

Juggernaut released the wrists. They fell limp against the floor.

"Took you long enough," he said.

Tempest was still staring at the body. At the blood—red as rust, not crimson, just blood—pooling slowly under Rogue's head.

"What was he doing out here?" Tempest asked.

Juggernaut shook his head. "Doesn't matter anymore."

"He was running from something."

"Everyone's running from something."

Tempest crouched down. Rogue's eyes were still open. Still looking. Not at anything in this room.

"He said—"

"I know what he said."

"He said I'd be the one on the floor."

Juggernaut was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was softer than before. The kind of soft that came from exhaustion.

"You won't be."

Tempest looked up. "You don't know that."

"I've been doing this longer than you've been alive. I know what happens to soldiers who keep their eyes open too long." Juggernaut turned toward the exit—a rusted door hanging crooked on one hinge. "Let's go. The fog's coming in."

Tempest stood. Took one last look at Rogue's face.

"One day," he said, "you'll be the one on the floor."

Then he followed Juggernaut out.

The body stayed.

The blood kept pooling.

The room—dark, concrete, empty except for a dead man and the sound of water dripping somewhere far below—went back to being what it had always been.

A place where things ended.

Outside, the fog was already rising.