The squad car smelled like sweat, bad coffee, and something vaguely metallic that Asha tried not to think about. Gerry said it was just the air freshener. Gerry said a lot of things.

“So,” he said, tapping the side of his thermos, “if a guy tells you he’s seen the future and it involves him winning the lottery, you cuff him or let him finish scratching the ticket?”

Asha didn’t look up from her notes. “Depends. Did he smoke it or cook it?”

“Oh, we’re being technical now.” He made a show of sighing. “Cooked. Probably. You know those little rice steamers? I swear to god, I saw one last week bubbling with pitch black Mamba. Looked like tar. Smelled like burnt mint and cheap candles.”

“That’s not what Mamba smells like.”

“You’re the expert.”

She didn’t answer. Gerry shifted in his seat and stared out the windshield. Across the street, a row of grimy apartment buildings blinked tired yellow lights through crooked blinds. There wasn’t much else to see. One kid on a bike had rolled past twenty minutes ago. Since then: nothing.

“I could be at home right now,” Gerry said. “Feet up. Watching wrestling. But no. I’m babysitting you while you take notes on what, exactly? The dirt?”

“I’m writing up the 6th Street bust,” Asha said.

“That was two days ago.”

“I didn’t have time.”

“You’re a cop. What else do you have?”

She scribbled another line and flipped the notebook shut. “You ever think about what you’d be doing if you weren’t sitting in this car?”

“I just told you. Wrestling. Maybe nachos.”

“I mean, actually. If you weren’t a cop.”

“Dead, probably.”

“That’s grim.”

“Realistic.” He sipped from the thermos. Whatever was in there had to be more caffeine than liquid. “You?”

“I used to think I’d be a civil rights attorney.”

Gerry snorted. “Oh good. So you can still have your dreams crushed, just with a nicer suit.”

Asha leaned back in her seat, arms crossed. She knew better than to let him get to her, but the words still stung a little. Two years ago, she’d thought this city could be fixed. That she could help fix it. Instead, she’d spent those years filing reports, catching kids with Mamba dust in their noses, and dragging the same dealers in week after week.

Nobody stayed in. Nobody stayed clean.

“You ever wonder what’d happen if they just legalized it?” she asked.

“Mamba?”

“Magic in general.”

Gerry gave her a look like she’d grown another head. “You know what happens when people can see the future? Nothing good. You’ve seen the overdose reports. One guy tried to dodge traffic lights for fun. Another tried to bet on ten different horse races at once. Their brains get scrambled. Like sticking a fork in a toaster.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the magic. It’s the way it’s delivered.”

“That’s adorable. You sound like the kids from those reform committees.”

“I was one of those kids.”

“Explains a lot.”

Asha shook her head and watched a leaf skitter down the sidewalk. She didn’t know why she still asked him things. Maybe just to hear what not to think.

Mamba had only hit the scene in full force four years ago, but already it was everywhere. Cheap to make, easy to hide, and damn near impossible to fight. The glow was unmistakable, bright green, like someone cracked open a glow stick, but the real danger was the smoke. One hit and a user could see fifteen, maybe twenty seconds into the future. Enough to dodge a punch, a cop, or a bullet. The high wore off fast, but while it lasted, it made you feel invincible.

Problem was, the stronger the dose, the more damage it did. Internal bleeding. Brain lesions. Permanent hallucinations. Straight fucking madness. And if someone got their hands on the black stuff, the real pure concentrate, they usually didn’t live to tell anyone about it.

“You ever actually arrest someone on black Mamba?”

“Twice. One of them saw his own death coming and still ran for it. Guess he thought he could change it.”

“What happened?”

Gerry shrugged. “Didn’t change it.”

They fell into silence again. The city buzzed quietly around them, distant sirens, someone yelling about a cab, the hum of traffic two blocks over. Asha adjusted the collar of her jacket. It was too hot for a coat and too cold for anything else.

“Why do you think people keep using it?” she asked.

“Mamba?”

“Yeah.”

Gerry shrugged again. “Same reason people jump off cliffs with parachutes. It’s not about what it does. It’s about what they get to pretend for five minutes.”

“You really believe we’re making a difference?” she asked quietly.

Gerry didn’t answer right away. He fiddled with the radio dial until it caught a fuzzy jazz station. Static crackled around the trumpet.

“Difference is a big word,” he said. “But some nights, I think we’re at least slowing the bleeding.”

Asha nodded, though she didn’t feel any better. Slowing the bleeding still meant the city was dying.

She was about to say something else when she saw it.

A faint tendril of green smoke curling up from the third floor of the tenement across the street.

She leaned forward. “We’ve got something.”

Gerry squinted. “Third floor?”

“Yeah.” Asha was already pushing open the car door. “Two windows from the left.”

He grunted and followed, thermos still in hand. “Could be a decoy.”

“Could be,” she said, not slowing.

The building was old brick, some kind of pre-war walkup with rusted handrails and mailboxes that hadn’t been checked since last fall. The front door was unlocked, because of course it was, and the lobby was one flickering lightbulb and a pile of takeout menus.

“Smells like someone died in here,” Gerry muttered, pulling a mask from his coat pocket.

Asha ignored him and started up the stairs. “You hear that?”

“Which part?”

“Exactly.”

The building was dead quiet. No TVs, no arguing neighbors, no creaky floorboards. Just the soft hum of the hallway light above them and the steady thump of their boots on the stairs.

By the time they reached the second landing, the smell hit her: sharp, chemical, and unmistakably sweet in the worst way. Mamba always had that weird candy-stale odor, like melted gum and ammonia. The stronger the batch, the worse it reeked. This one was trying to climb down her throat.

She pulled her mask on and adjusted the straps. “Filters good?”

“Mine still smells like garlic,” Gerry said. “But yeah.”

They reached the top of the third floor. The smoke was thicker here, green threads curling out from under the door of unit 3B. It hissed faintly against the tile like it was alive.

Asha unholstered her sidearm and nodded to Gerry, who did the same, reluctantly.

“I’ll take left,” he said, moving into position. “On your go.”

Asha raised her fist and knocked twice.

Silence.

Then came the crash: pots, metal, something heavy. A clatter of glass.

The smoke thickened under the door, brightening as it pooled outward. Her mask caught most of it, but her eyes still stung.

“Going in,” she muttered.

She kicked once. Nothing.

Second kick. The wood cracked at the hinges and gave way with a crunch, slamming open into the wall.

The heat hit her first. Not fire, but steam, thick and wet and laced with that sharp, sweet stench.

The whole apartment looked like it had been wrapped in a trash bag. Walls covered in plastic, floor lined with taped-down sheets of black tarp, like someone expected a full-on explosion. The kitchen was a nightmare, six huge pots bubbling with iridescent liquid, glowing slightly, the steam rolling off them in waves. Seran wrap clung to every surface. Containers of white powder were stacked against the counter, and clear bags lay half-packed on the table, each filled with chunks of brittle green.

The cooks were already moving, three of them scrambling through the kitchen window, out onto the fire escape. One of them knocked over a tub of powder as he went, and the whole thing puffed upward in a cloud of shimmer and smoke.

“Shit,” Gerry muttered, stepping back as more smoke rushed toward them.

Asha didn’t hesitate. She lunged toward the window, boots skidding on the tarp. She made it just in time to see three figures clambering over the railing.

One of them turned to glance back. Shaved head, denim jacket, neck covered in ink.

Joyce.

Her stomach twisted. She didn’t even have to check twice.

“Joyce,” she growled under her breath.

Gerry was already on his comm. “Dispatch, this is Unit Forty-Nine. We’ve got an active Mamba cook, suspects fleeing southbound from 222 Sycamore, third floor. Requesting backup and containment, over.”

Asha was already halfway out the window.

“Asha,” Gerry called. “Wait! They’re hopped up, we don’t know how much—”

“I know,” she said, cutting him off.

“Wait for backup!”

But she didn’t. Her hands were already gripping the rusted frame, one leg over the sill, boots scraping against the ledge. The fire escape groaned under her weight as she dropped down to the landing.

Below her, the three figures were moving fast down the stairs, then leaping the last railing to the alley behind the building.

She jumped the last two rungs and hit the concrete running.

Joyce didn’t look back again, but she knew he’d seen her. He always knew when she was coming. Smug bastard probably got a half-dose in before the lab got hot.

The alley twisted behind a row of dumpsters, then broke open to the street. Asha pushed harder, weaving through the trash bags and scattered glass. Her lungs burned behind the mask.

Up ahead, one of the runners peeled off; too slow, probably too high. The other two, Joyce included, dashed through traffic like they’d rehearsed it.

Gerry’s voice was still in her ear, tinny through the radio: “Unit Forty-Nine in pursuit, officer separated, suspect Joyce confirmed visual. Copy, backup en route.”

She ignored it. The street blurred around her; honking cars, a woman yelling from a window, a bike courier swerving wide. Asha focused only on Joyce’s jacket, flapping as he jumped a curb and veered toward the underpass.

He was fast. He always had been. But not faster than her. Not if he wasn’t full dosed.

She kept her eyes on his shoulders, his stride, looking for the tell, the moment he’d react before she moved, the twitch that meant he’d seen something just ahead.

Nothing yet.

He ducked between two parked vans, and she followed without hesitation.

The foot chase was on.

Joyce led her straight through the gap between two parked vans, down an alley so narrow Asha had to turn sideways to keep pace. He hopped a low fence, cleared a trash bin, and hit the next street without breaking stride.

She followed, maybe a second behind. Maybe less. The moment her boots hit the sidewalk, she caught the back of his jacket veering into another cut between buildings. Her lungs were already burning.

The streets were busy. Not rush hour, but close. Delivery trucks, food carts, people in line outside a soup place. Most barely noticed the chase. One or two stepped aside, but others just glared or muttered as Asha brushed past.

Joyce kept to the shadows, hugging alleys, darting across intersections right before lights changed. Twice she saw him cross while cars were still rolling, slipping between bumpers like he knew exactly which cab would stop, and which one wouldn’t.

He didn’t look back. He didn’t have to.

Asha pushed harder, weaving between trash bags and boxes. They passed a makeshift street stall; some guy hawking crystal charms and amulets off a blanket. She didn’t even register what half of them were. He yelled something about protection spells as she flew by.

“Get a license,” she muttered, not stopping.

The sidewalk narrowed again. Joyce didn’t slow. He vaulted a stack of crates, then slipped sideways between a hotdog cart and a lamppost. Asha followed without thinking—

—and caught the cart square in the hip as the vendor rolled it forward.

“Hey!” the guy yelled, mustard flying as the cart jolted. “Watch it!”

Asha staggered, clutching her side. Her breath caught. The pain flared hot and dull across her hipbone. Not broken. Probably. Bruised, at best.

She shook it off and looked up. Joyce was already two crosswalks away, ducking under a scaffolding near the corner.

Her radio crackled.

“Asha,” came Gerry’s voice, too calm for how loud her blood felt. “You need to turn back. Orders just came in. Scene needs processing. We’ve got a lab full of hot product, and no eyes on who else might’ve been there.”

Asha didn’t answer. She ducked into the street, ignoring the honk of a passing van, and kept moving.

“He’s getting away!” she snapped back. “Joyce is the reason that lab even exists. He’s the one tying every West Side cook together. You know that.”

Gerry sighed, long and static-filled. “Not our call.”

“It’s always our call. You think anyone else is gonna chase him? He’s been slipping us for months.”

“You’re not catching him like this. Not when he’s running on product. You know how it goes. Drop it.”

She turned a corner and saw him again, cutting across a plaza, already halfway through. He slid under a row of tables like he’d walked the path a thousand times.

The city was built for this kind of movement; too much clutter, too many places to hide. Booths for street readers selling dream interpretations, food trucks blasting ads for fire-grilled chicken wraps, piles of abandoned bikes in every alley. And no one really watched. They saw two people running and just assumed something dumb. A lover’s spat, a TikTok thing, maybe a bet.

Asha barreled forward, dodging a cluster of pigeons and vaulting a low planter box. Her hip throbbed, but she didn’t stop.

Gerry’s voice came again. “Orders are in. Let him go.”

She grit her teeth. “Then send someone who can catch him.”

“We are. Tomorrow. With a warrant. That’s how it works.”

“By then he’ll be in the wind again.”

“And you’ll still have a job. If you don’t do something dumb.”

Another voice jumped on the line, clipped, nasal, definitely not Gerry.

“Asha, this is Lieutenant Butterfield.”

She didn’t say anything. She could already guess where this was going.

“You’ve been ordered to break off pursuit. Return to 222 Sycamore immediately. I don’t want to see another civilian report come across my desk because you caused a scene on a public street.”

Asha hopped over a toppled trash can and ducked left. Joyce had just slipped into another alley, one that connected to the garment district. More back doors, fewer cameras. She was losing ground.

“Asha.”

Still running.

“This is not a debate. You’re off leash. Get back to the lab. Now.”

She slowed for half a second, breathing hard. Glanced up. No more direct line of sight. Joyce had turned again.

Her thumb hovered over the radio trigger.

She clicked it off.

The world went quiet except for her breath, her boots, and the echo of the city around her.

She kept going.

Joyce was a few blocks ahead now, bobbing in and out of view like a ghost. Every time she thought she’d lost him, he turned up again. Near a newsstand, slipping behind a garbage truck, darting across the mouth of a side street. He looked back once, met her eyes, and grinned. Not in a full gloat, more like a “you’re still here?” expression. Then he picked up speed.

Asha gritted her teeth and pushed harder. Her side still throbbed from the hotdog cart hit, but she didn’t care. If she let him go now, it’d be another month of chasing ghosts and hearing about jurisdiction limits.

Joyce turned right at a laundromat, then jogged across an open intersection. He paused for half a second on the other side, looked left, then abruptly shifted direction and took a sharp left instead.

Weird.

She followed. When she hit the corner and turned, she saw why.

Up ahead, across three more blocks, the street opened into a wave of color, motion, and music. A parade, huge, winding, and fully underway.

Banners hung from the lamp posts. There were drums. Confetti. One of those awful rolling DJ platforms with neon panels and people shouting over the beat. Kids were waving flags. Someone dressed as a giant pencil was dancing in circles near the crowd line.

Of course. It was the Citywide Literacy Awareness March. She’d seen the posters all week and ignored every one of them.

Joyce hadn’t. Or at least, Mamba hadn’t.

He cut directly into the mass of people, veering between a stilt-walker and a guy in a full paper mâché book costume. Asha hesitated for one second; she was about to lose him.

Then she dove in.

The crowd wasn’t tight, but it was packed enough that every second of movement took twice as much energy. She bounced off a man juggling books, dodged a balloon handler with a string tangle the size of a dog, and slipped under a banner reading “Read to Lead.”

Joyce was making space like a plow. Not graceful, just fast. He shoved past a group of middle schoolers in matching blue shirts and knocked over one of the sandwich boards announcing the next float. People were yelling, but he didn’t slow down.

The parade was unraveling around him. A woman in a “Live, Laugh, Literacy” sash screamed as he barreled through her row of folding chairs. One of the marching bands veered off rhythm and broke apart trying to dodge him.

Asha followed, no room for politeness now. She shoulder-checked a guy with a clipboard, ducked under a spinning sign, and leapt over a spilled pile of bookmarks. Somewhere behind her, someone was yelling about permits.

Joyce hit the next float and veered alongside it. He kicked over a support pole as he passed, and the side curtain collapsed. A speaker fell and crashed to the pavement. Screams followed.

Asha slid through the gap in the curtain, caught her foot on a cable, and stumbled into the edge of the float.

“Ma’am!” someone yelled behind her. “This is a family—!”

She didn’t hear the rest. Joyce had cleared the float and was ducking into a pack of dancing mascots shaped like punctuation marks. The exclamation point tripped trying to sidestep him, and the question mark went down right after.

More screaming.

Asha caught sight of Joyce again, still a few bodies ahead. She sprinted, weaving through the chaos, until she was within arm’s reach.

Joyce looked back. Smirked again.

She lunged.

He dodged, but not clean. Her hand caught the back of his jacket and yanked. He slipped, stumbled, and clipped the edge of a fire hydrant that someone had decorated to look like a quill.

That was enough.

Asha tackled him to the ground, knees on pavement, elbow jammed against his spine.

He thrashed once, then groaned. “You again.”

“You’re under arrest,” she muttered, still catching her breath.

“For what?” he said, half-laughing. “Disrupting the magic of reading?”

She didn’t answer. Someone stepped on a kazoo nearby. Kids were crying. One of the paper mâché books had collapsed sideways into a parked truck.

Only then did Asha glance around.

The parade was wrecked. Not entirely, but close. One float was stopped completely, half a balloon deflated. Marchers were arguing with parade staff. A woman in a feathered bookmark costume was yelling into her phone. Somewhere nearby, a band was still playing out of sync, stubbornly clinging to whatever tune they’d started with.

Asha unmuted her comms to the enraged screams of both Butterfield and Gerry.

Fuck.