The enforcer fires.
The plasma bolt goes wide and punches a smoking hole through the freezer door.
The thing hits him mid-scream and drives him into the wall with a sound like a car crash compressed into one heartbeat.
Then there is nothing left moving in my kitchen except fire, smoke, and whatever the hell that is standing in the middle of the carnage with blood steaming off its bone spurs.
My knees give out.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
My legs just… stop cooperating.
I stagger forward one useless step and then fold, my body tipping sideways like a bad stack of plates.
“No,” I whisper.
Not because I think it’s going to kill me.
Because my brain has finally decided this is real, and I am absolutely not equipped to be conscious for whatever comes next.
The heat climbs.
The fire behind the grill roars higher, licking up the wall and curling across the ceiling tiles, which are now sagging and cracking with ominous, splintering sounds.
The ceiling groans.
Deep.
Structural.
My ears ring again, harder this time, and the smoke gets so thick my eyes burn like someone rubbed chili oil into them.
I drag in a breath that feels like knives and stagger forward again, arms out in front of me like I’m trying to swim through air.
The thing turns.
It looks at me.
I don’t know how I know it’s looking at me.
I just know.
The bone spurs retract slightly, the way a cat’s claws do when it’s deciding whether you’re prey or not.
Our eyes meet through the smoke and strobe.
Its eyes glow.
Not brightly.
Not dramatically.
Just a faint, wrong light, like reflections that don’t belong there.
My heart does something stupid and traitorous inside my chest.
