Valentine makes a strained noise. “You can’t just – this level of breach, the Director will?—”
Kayla doesn’t even look back at him. “The Director will throw a tantrum and send men with clipboards,” she says. “I’m not impressed.”
Honeymonster barks out a laugh. “God, I missed you.”
The building shudders as something deeper in the guts of it dies – generator, server, maybe one of the bigger mechanical systems trying to reboot and failing. The lights flicker again, then settle into a weaker, jaundiced glow. Somewhere far off, a door slams shut.
Interesting.But Kayla doesn’t seem bothered so I dismiss the potential threat.
“Keep moving,” Ghost says. “These systems weren’t designed for…whatever she did.”
“Don’t be rude,” Kayla says. “They’re experiencing growth.”
We reach a junction and she doesn’t hesitate, just turns left like she wrote the floorplans. Her feet don’t slip once, even when she steps through a puddle of diluted red streaking away under a door. I can’t tell if that’s adrenaline or just…her.
“Not worried about leaving a trail, sweetheart?” I ask, nodding at the prints she’s leaving behind.
She glances down, unimpressed. “If they’re smart they’ll follow it to the nearest exit and thank me for the opportunity to be alive somewhere else,” she says. “If they’re not smart, they can stay. It’s a great time to pivot into a career in haunting.”
Snow snorts, half-hysterical. Nightshade’s jaw tightens. He keeps scanning every corner like he expects an armed response team to burst through the walls. Except there’s no movement. No shouts. No stampede of staff. The only people making noise in this place now are us.
And that’s the part that gets to me.
I’ve seen Kayla bleed and I’ve seen her be the one holding the blade. I’ve seen messy and clean and everything in between. But walking through a facility this big and hearing nothing but our footsteps and her jokes? That hits different. There should be resistance. There should be guns. There should be someone yelling codes into a radio and slamming emergency shutters down in our faces. Instead, all the shutters look like they tried. Some are stuck halfway, stuttering in place, others dropped and then jammed. Systems coughing, sputtering.
“She pulled the plug on them,” I murmur, mostly to myself. “While they weren’t looking. Right under their noses.”
Ghost glances at me. “She does that,” he says mildly.
Kayla hears us and beams. “Look at you, paying attention,” she says. “Ten points to Team Reality.”
Valentine has gone quiet. He keeps scanning the bodies we pass with the kind of strained expression I’ve seen on junior staff after their first real mission. He isn’t new. He’s seen corpses before. But I don’t think he’s seen someone he thought was a patient turn a building into this much collateral in a single night. Certainly not single-handedly.
“She really did this alone?” he asks finally, voice thin.
Nightshade turns his head just enough to look at him, eyes very flat. “She wasn’t alone,” he says. “She had them.” His handtightens on Kayla’s stomach, a brief, possessive press. “That’s more than enough.”
Kayla hums, pleased. “He gets it,” she says.
We hit a set of doors that lead out toward the side wing, glass panels streaked with smudged handprints. Beyond them I can see the darker shape of the grounds, the glimmer of another building’s windows, the faint shadowy outline of something that might be the greenhouse. The corridor angles that way, carrying the ghost of fresher air.
“Almost done?” I ask. “Because as much as I enjoy your murder museum, I’d like to be off-site before this place decides to fall on our heads.”
“In a minute,” she says. “There are still some loose ends in the medical wing. And I’d hate for my art to go unappreciated. Or my message to go undelivered.”
Ghost makes a soft noise that could be horrified agreement. Snow actually laughs; it comes out too high. Honeymonster claps him on the shoulder like he’s proud.
“Loose ends?” Valentine echoes, wary.
Kayla glances back at him, eyes bright and sharp. “Doctor Callaway,” she says. “She and I had a little chat. She’s very motivated to talk to the right people now. I just…adjusted her circumstances.”
A picture begins to form in my head. It’s not pretty. It is extremely satisfying.
“Do we need to finish it?” I ask. “Tie it off, so to speak?”
“Tempting,” she says. “But no. She’s the message. Messages don’t work if you shred them before they’re delivered. Seytan can mop up. Or the Director. Or whoever gets here first.”
Nightshade’s mouth does that tiny, vicious curl I like. “You’re getting good at this,” he murmurs.
