Then a voice cuts through the chaos, smooth and arrogant, soaked in a Texas drawl that makes Saint stop dead in her tracks.
“Saint James…”
Colt “The Texan” Herrington doesn’t need to shout. He announces it instead, a declaration meant as much for the other assassins as for her.
“She’s mine.”
Something ugly twists in my chest, hot and sharp, and I realize I’m already unscrewing the suppressor from my gun without remembering deciding to do it. My hands move on instinct, fueled by a fury I don’t bother interrogating.
My eyes stay locked on Saint as she slowly turns to face him, the space around her going unnaturally still. I can feelthe tension ripple outward, killers pausing mid-step like animals waiting for the first crack of thunder.
I should’ve killed him yesterday.
But not yet. Not until he plays his part.
Colt smirks and raises his gun, confidence written all over him. He’s good long range and more comfortable with heavy firepower. He likes distance and destruction. Likes feeling untouchable.
Unfortunately for him, my specialty is not sniping. I’m not exclusive to the long-range club. My specialty is simple. Hitting targets. With anything.
I could flick a bead at a penny and hit Abe Lincoln right on the nose. If I miss, it’s because I wanted to. I know one other master of the Guild with the same specialty. Two marbles I keep in my pocket for that very reminder.
Saint’s eyes find mine for half a heartbeat, and that’s all it takes.
“Go,” I call out.
I pull the trigger a fraction of a second later, the shot tearing through the air and taking Colt’s trigger finger clean off just before he can fire. The report cracks loud and final, echoing through the terminal.
Travelers scream and dive for cover. Colt howls, clutching his hand as blood sprays and his gun clatters to the floor.
It’s me that rings the fucking bell. And on my signal, all hellbreaks loose.
Chaos erupts all at once, loud, and shapeless and impossible to outrun.
People scatter in every direction, screaming, dropping bags, slipping on polished floors as alarms begin to howl overhead, the shrill wail of something pulled too late. The terminal fractures into panic, and threaded through it are the assassins who came prepared for exactly this.
The first one makes the mistake of closing the distance with me.
I pivot into him, drive my knee hard into the small of his back, and feel his spine give with a wet, final sound that never gets old. He drops before he can scream. At the same time, I fire once over his shoulder, the shot clean and centered, and the man rushing me from the side folds instantly, skull snapping back as he hits the ground.
No time to admire the work.
Saint is already running, moving against the tide of fleeing civilians, drawing the hunters toward her like gravity. They want her dead, and they don’t care how many people get trampled in the process.
One of them reaches her first.
I see her swing a food court chair like she was born with it in her hands, the metal frame cracking into his face hardenough to drop him, then she spins and hurls it at another assassin charging in from her flank. The chair connects and explodes apart, sending him sprawling.
She dives into a convenience store just as a gunshot cracks through the air, glass shattering where her head was a second ago. I angle toward her, firing as I move, dropping the shooter and never breaking stride.
She bursts back out of the store with a phone charger looped around an assassin’s throat, yanking it tight and hauling the woman backward into her body. The assassin claws at her neck, choking, while another attacker launches a handful of ninja stars that thunk uselessly into the human shield’s abdomen.
Saint doesn’t flinch, just keeps pulling on that cord, her hold locked as the woman in her grip claws uselessly at it while Saint scopes out the next threat.
“ Oh, hey, Derek,” Saint says calmly.
He’s already finishing someone else when he answers, blade stabbed into another assassin’s ribs like this is just a messy office dispute.
The struggles from the assassin she’s strangling turn sloppy, then weak, then stop altogether.
