Cold air.
Night sky stretched above me, star-scattered and vast. The moon hung full and bright, watching our escape with silver indifference.
Wind whipped across my face, carrying the scent of blood, gunpowder, and freedom.
Sharp.
Metallic.
Electric.
I tasted copper on my tongue. Didn't know if it was real.
Heard the thrum of helicopter blades.
A rhythmic thunder vibrated through my bones, through Rook's chest, through the air itself. The sound was so loud it became a physical presence, pressing against my eardrums, filling the spaces between my thoughts.
Rook carried me toward it, his stride never faltering, his arms never loosening.
Gunfire.
Sharp cracks split the night.
Blackmoor's external security had finally responded—too late, too slow, too outmatched.
Muzzle flashes lit the darkness like angry fireflies.
There and gone.
There and gone.
I heard shouts, screams, the wet sounds of violence meeting flesh.
A Spade taking a bullet and laughing.
I saw him through half-lidded eyes—a massive man with a spade tattooed on his neck, blood blooming across his shoulder like a crimson flower, grinning like he'd just heard the funniest joke in the world. His teeth were stained red. His eyes werebright with joy. He raised his weapon and returned fire without breaking stride, laughing louder when another bullet found his arm.
The Broken Court didn't fear pain.
The Broken Court had been forged by it.
A Diamond slitting a guard's throat. She had diamonds inked across her cheekbones. Her blade was a flash of silver in the dark, before it found the guard’s flesh.
The guard's eyes went wide. A thin red line appeared across his throat. He dropped without a sound, his life spilling onto the grass, and she stepped over his body without looking down.
Two Hearts moved through the carnage as one creature—a man and woman with matching tattoos on their throats, fingers interlaced even as they killed. She fired left while he fired right. He yanked her from a guard's reach while she opened another's belly with a knife.
They never let go of each other.
Never stopped touching.
When a bullet caught him in the thigh, she screamed like the wound had torn through her own flesh—then ripped out the shooter's eyes with her bare hands, her other hand still gripping her lover's.
The Broken Court was unleashed.
They swarmed across the facility grounds.
They were a plague given human form.
