“You think you can just—” Julia is snarling now, even while dangling from Nate’s grip, her hair taut against her reddening scalp. “You’remine, Vanguard. I made you. I can unmake you just as easily!”
Nate throws her like he’s swinging a cat.
She hits the wall hard enough to dent the plaster, crumpling to the floor in a heap of navy silk. He doesn’t even look at her—he’s already moving, already going after Marsh.
“The restraints,” I call after him, my voice still ravaged. “Nate, the restraints…”
He stops and turns back, crosses to me in two strides and the metal buckles snap like plastic under his hands. My wrists scream with relief, blood rushing back into my fingers.
“Stay here,” he says, his jaw tight, eyes hard. “I need to deal with Marsh.”
I open my mouth to call him back but he’s already gone, disappearing through the observation room and into the corridor beyond.
Seconds later, I hear screaming. I don’t know Marsh well enough to recognize his voice, but I know terror when I hear it. The screams rise in pitch, then cut off abruptly, replaced by sounds I don’t want to identify.
Wet sounds.
Final sounds.
It’s disgusting but warranted, and I feel a twinge of satisfaction.
A groan steals my attention from the corner of the room.
Julia is trying to get to her feet. Her hair has come loose from its perfect chignon, blood trickling her forehead. She’s muttering something—calling for security on some kind of sub-dermal comm, maybe, or just cursing Nate’s existence.
It takes everything I have to stand. My legs don’t want to hold me, my ribs scream with every breath. But I make it upright, stagger across the room, and when Julia finally looks up, I’m right there in front of her.
“You—” she starts.
I grab her face roughly with both hands, my fingernails digging in.
And I press my lips to hers and kiss her.
It’s revenge, pure and simple, fifteen years of isolation and rage and grief channeled into this one act. I make sure it’s deep. I make sure it counts.
When I pull back, Julia’s eyes are already going wide. “No!” she cries out. “You didn’t. You?—”
I know it takes time for them to die but it’s working fast on her. Her hands fly to her throat. Her mouth opens and closes,foam bubbling at her lips, and she makes a gurgling sound that might be my name or might be a curse or might just be the sound of her body realizing what I’ve done to it.
She collapses.
I watch her lying on the on the white floor, trying to take in air, her designer clothes soaking up the spittle and bile, and I think about Cal. About Bayo and Kat’s faces in those photos. About every bruise on my body, every question Keller asked while his fists did the talking.
“That’s for all of them,” I whisper.
I don’t stay to watch her die.
I half-stagger, half-limp into the chaos that is the corridor.
Marsh is—was—about ten feet from the observation room door. I can tell where he fell because there’s blood everywhere, arterial spray painting the pale green walls like abstract art. And the body…
I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies but this?—
This is something else.
Conrad Marsh is in pieces. Literally. His arms are several feet from his torso, as are his legs. His chest has been caved in. Below that, intestines and organs snake across the floor. His face is frozen in an expression of absolute terror, and his eyes—still open—seem to follow me as I step carefully around what’s left of him.
Nate is standing at the end of the corridor, his back to me. His hands are red to the elbows. His shoulders are heaving with each breath.
