The door of the second vehicle burst open, and Veyra officers spilled out, weapons raised. Their black uniforms and reflective helmets made them look like insects among the drab colors of the Boundary. One fired a warning shot into the air. The crack of gunfire seemed to momentarily freeze the scene—the officers in their defensive stance, the crowd paused in their attack.
Then someone from the back of the crowd hurled another bottle. It struck an officer’s helmet, exploding in a shower of glass and liquid. The officer staggered, then steadied his weapon and fired directly into the crowd.
A woman fell, clutching her chest as blood bloomed across her shirt like an obscene flower.
The crowd’s roar became a howl.
Jameson moved. He sprinted out from behind the dumpster as the street erupted into chaos, his gun already raised. Veyra officers poured from the vehicles now, forming a defensive circle as they fired into the crowd. Bodies fell, but for every person who dropped, three moreseemed to emerge from the shadows, throwing themselves at the officers with suicidal determination.
The nearest officer was separated from his unit, backing away as three men advanced on him with raised weapons. His rifle swung between them, panic evident in his jerky movements. His back hit the wall of a building as his helmet turned frantically, searching for escape. There was none. He raised his rifle and fired at the closest rebel.
Jameson was on him before the man’s body hit the ground. He moved like water through the chaos, slipping into the space between the officer and his remaining attackers. The officer’s head swiveled toward him, the reflective visor hiding the moment of recognition, the instant of fear as Jameson’s gun pressed against the gap between helmet and body armor.
Jameson pulled the trigger.
The sound was swallowed by the riot. Blood and brain matter spattered against the wall behind them as the officer crumpled. Jameson was already moving, targeting his next victim with the efficiency that had earned him his reputation.
A second officer broke from the main group, backing away from the crowd with his weapon raised. He fired twice, dropping a teenage boy who’d been charging him with a length of pipe. The boy fell, writhing, screaming. The officer kept firing, bullet after bullet punching into the fallen child until he stopped moving.
It was not protection. It was murder.
He would fucking die for that.
Rage rose in Jameson’s chest, a tide of burning acid that threatened to detonate. He circled behind the officer, closing the distance in three long strides. His arm snaked around the Veyra’s neck, twisting sharply, putting his full weight into the motion. The pop of vertebrae separating was the only thing Jameson heard as the cracking of bone vibrated through his forearm.
He let the body fall, already scanning for his next target. The street had dissolved into pure violence now, Boundary residents overwhelming the officers through sheer numbers despite the automatic weapons cutting through their ranks. Blood darkened the cracked concrete, turning puddles of chemical runoff into crimson pools that reflected the flashing lights of the patrol vehicles.
A third officer stumbled into Jameson’s path, helmet gone, face exposed and terrified. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second—just long enough for the officer to register Jameson’s cold intent, just long enough for Jameson to see the plea forming on his lips.
He didn’t hesitate.
The knife slid from his sleeve into his palm, an extension of his arm as he lashed out in a single, fluid motion. The blade opened the officer’s throat from ear to ear, a perfect crimson smile blossoming beneath his chin. Blood sprayed across Jameson’s face, hot and metallic. The Veyra dropped to his knees, hands clutching futilely at his ruined throat, eyes still locked on Jameson’s as the light behind them dimmed and extinguished.
When Jameson finally looked up, when he tore his eyes away—he saw the carnage. Saw the Veyra bodies scattered among rebels. Saw as the patrol vehicles were set ablaze with Molotov cocktails.
Jameson stood in the center of it, chest heaving, blood dripping from his face, his hands, soaking into his clothes. The knife in his grip gleamed red and wet in the firelight.
Around him, the Boundary went silent as a mother pushed through the crowd. The bodies parted for her as she made her way toward Jameson, toward the body on the ground beside him.
Toward herson.
The mother’s scream was the most horrific thing he had ever heard. Her anguish echoed into the burning night as she dropped to her knees in the blood soaked mud and pulled her dead child into her arms.
Jameson’s heart twisted in his chest, a physical pain that radiated outward until his entire body ached with it. The sound cracked a deep vein into the foundation of his being, rage filling the void as he looked toward the Heart.
This was Maximus Serel’s doing. The President who sat in his tower, who ordered these patrols, who treated the Boundary like an infestation to be controlled rather than people to be governed.
The mother’s keening cut through the night air, raw and primal. It was a cry Jameson had heard too many times in his life—the sound of loss that couldn’t be measured, couldn’t be avenged, couldn’t be healed. Her tears mingled with her son’s blood as she rocked him back and forth, her fingers tracing his face as if trying to memorize it before death stole even that away.
The crowd stood silent, heads bowed, a momentary reverence for grief in the midst of violence. Some removed their hats, pressing them toward their chests as they knelt with the mother. One by one, the Boundary knelt, rage simmering just below the surface, waiting for the next spark to ignite it.
Then, from somewhere in the back of the crowd, a voice rose. Low but strong—the old anthem. The song that had started all of this, the song that so many had already died for, for the right to sing it. It was no longer the old forbidden anthem.
It was the song of the new rebellion.
A second voice joined, then a third. Soon dozens of voices swelled together, filling the street with a sound more dangerous than gunfire. His vision blurred as more voices joined, the music rolling through the street like thunder.
The mother looked up from her son’s body, tears streaking through the blood on her face, and added her broken voice to the chorus.
