The large Russian came at me fast. I couldn’t have said how I moved, only that the antique wiring in my brain took over, rerouting all conscious thought into a single line of force. My body went low, straight into the Russian’s center of gravity, but he was ready—no amateur, no rent-a-gun. His fist smashed my right shoulder, and the Kevlar vest drank just enough of the punch to keep my collarbone intact. I felt the impact all the way down my spine, a hot lance that nearly short-circuited my legs. I staggered, but he didn’t press; he waited, poised, smiling like he’d already counted the moves to checkmate.
Damron and Seneca angled off, flanking, but I shook them off with a flick of my left hand. This was mine.
The Russian’s eyes were opera blue, glinting in the darkness. He spat blood onto the worn pine and beckoned with two fingers. I answered with the butt of the stock of the AR—one, two, three—each blow meant to erase what portion of his brain still thought this was a contest.
The first shot cracked him in the cheekbone—a sound like a pool cue breaking. The second caught him just under the jaw, driving the tongue through the back teeth with a meaty thunk. The third? That was for me. I put it square between his eyes, and the blood misted in a perfect halo as he toppled backward, legs folding before the torso even registered death.
The silence that followed wasn’t real. My ears rang, the adrenaline carving time into tiny, feverish slices. I felt Seraphina’s hands on my back, gripping for anchor. I turned just as she lost her balance, caught her at the waist. Her glasses were gone, her face streaked with tears or sweat or both, and her mouth worked at a sentence the rest of her body couldn’t remember how to finish.
“You’re okay,” I said, because nothing else would come. I cradled her, half holding her up, half holding her together, and our bodies—her shuddering, mine locked hard with leftover aggression—made an unsteady sculpture in the middle of the kill zone.
Augustine was already clearing the hallway, slow, checked for more, but the echo of the last shot was a guarantee: no one would come in that door unless they wanted to die.
Damron swept the perimeter one last time, then beckoned us all toward the exit. “Clean up, fast. If there’s a follow-on team, they’re already en route.”
Outside, the moon was high, painting the whole mountain in blue and white. The bikes waited where we’d left them, enginescooling in the frost. Damron gave me a nod, then took point down the trail. Augustine limped after him, clutching his side.
Seneca hung back, watching the station as if expecting the world to crack open and deliver another enemy. “You gonna be okay?” he asked.
Seraphina straightened, wiped her face with the sleeve of my jacket. “I’ll manage.”
He watched her a moment, then turned to me. “You did good,” he said, low. “Just don’t let it happen again.”
I didn’t promise anything.
We left the Russian alive, because that’s what men like us do. We take what we need and leave the rest for the world to clean up.
The ride home was silent. Seraphina rode behind me, arms locked tight around my waist. I could feel her heartbeat through my jacket, faster than the engine, faster than anything I’d ever known.
At the club, we patched up the wounds, counted our own, then sat at the chapel table, letting the smoke and silence do the talking. Nobody mentioned what it had cost. Nobody mentioned how close we’d come.
Seraphina sat beside me, her hair still matted, her eyes never leaving my face.
When the world started up again, she was still there, alive and unbroken.
And so was I.
17
Seraphina
Iwoke on a bed in a back room of the Bloody Scythes clubhouse, the concrete floor cold beneath me and barred windows offering no comfort. The only light came from a single bulb, naked, humming like a toothache, painting everything in the colorless shade of near-morning.
My throat felt packed with sand. For a second, I couldn’t move. I’d expected—what? The hospital, maybe. Or the lab, strapped to a gurney, saline in my arm, government men with laminated badges lurking just out of view. But this was different. This was a bunker, a tomb, a place built to be survived, not remembered.
Across the room, Nitro sat in a folding chair, elbows braced to knees, hands dangling, head down. The lines of his neck were tense, like he was fighting off the instinct to stand up and run. He looked up when I stirred, eyes catching the light and holding it, letting nothing slip past.
He didn’t speak. Just watched, measured. Waiting to see which version of me would wake up.
My legs were numb. I dragged them to the side of the bed, pressed bare feet to the floor, and flinched at the chill. A blanket—a real one, heavy, army-issue—was tangled around my waist. My arms prickled with sweat in the cold, but I didn’t dare shrug it off. The shudder in my hands wasn’t from temperature, not exactly.
My brain started a checklist. I tried to remember how I got here, but everything after the last gunshot was a slurry of noise, broken glass, the ragged edge of a knife, and the rough hands that cut me free. I remembered Nitro’s voice in my ear, low and urgent. I remembered blood, not mine, running down the side of my cheek, warm and sticky, painting a line from temple to jaw.
I remembered the chair, the Russian with the gun, the metallic click of the safety disengaging. I remembered the smell—urine, cordite, the coppery sweetness of violence. I remembered the certainty that this was it, the black drop at the end of the probability well.
I remembered wanting to call out, but my mouth wouldn’t work.
I didn’t remember how I got from there to here, but Nitro must have carried me and put me on his bike.
