My hero.
The man I was convinced nightmares were made of.
The man I’d misunderstood my entire life without even trying to understand him better.
And it is agony.
Agony I instinctively turn to bloodlust, before it can break me.
I run towards the enemy because I can’t see around the red.
I sprint into their defensive line without hesitation as though I’m consumed by madness. By violence.
And I use the knife at my side to slice open their throats.
There is shouting in my periphery, the sound of gunfire, before Baal is beside me—a mirror to my grief and bloodlust.
I grab the barrels of their guns and get in close to drive my blade into their necks. I use their dead to defend against bullets—to get closer to others—before shooting them in the head with my pistol.
My brother is at my back and we are a whirlwind of blades and guns. Of agony and hatred.
But we are outnumbered.
We are outnumbered and Baal is the first to fall.
They grab him when he’s much too far from me. They hold a gun to his head and ask me to stand down.
My knife finds its target between the enemy’s eyes—the man who dared to hold a gun to my brother’s head.
A shot rings through the air and pain tears through my leg.
I fall to one knee, but still, I swipe the gun from a fallen man to return fire, managing to kill two of their own.
“I said stand down!” A man screams at me and this time I have to force my entire being to pause. To hold the violence back.
He forces Baal to his knees and tugs his hair to force his head up. Baal glares at him unafraid, but his captor isn’t looking at him.
He’s looking at me.
I am out of blades to throw… Out of guns to fire.
Yet still, he looks afraid of what I might do.
I’m happy to have that effect on people.
They hold me down because I let them. When they get close enough to tie me up, I snap my body out to the nearest man, taking his ear into my teeth and tearing it out viciously.
I spit the bloody flesh out with a grin and it earns me a bullet in my arm and the strike of a gun against the back of my head.
Overkill for an ear if you ask me.
“Reuben Taiga.”
A familiar voice calls my attention away from the pain, and I blink the dark spots out of my vision to focus on him clearly.
August Antonovna.
I’d spoken with him only once, back when I was doing damage control after the Millenium Star incident. When we’d met then, I’d given my heartfelt apologies for his brother’s death.
