The engine cuts.
The transport jerks, coasts forward another three feet, and then goes dead in the middle of the alley like a gutted animal.
Doors slam open.
Four men spill out, weapons already half-raised, their movements sharp and trained but just sloppy enough around the edges to make my jaw tighten.
Too young.
Too amped.
Too confident.
I drop from the tram station roof and hit the alley hard enough to crack concrete, the impact rippling up my legs and into my spine in a dull, familiar jolt.
They hear me.
They turn.
“Oh, fuck,” one of them breathes.
I’m already moving.
The first one goes down before he can bring his rifle fully up, my shoulder slamming into his chest hard enough to knock the wind out of him and send him skidding across the pavement. His weapon clatters away into the gutter.
The second fires.
The round sparks off my shoulder and ricochets into a dumpster behind me with a metallic shriek.
I backhand him across the face and feel cartilage give under my knuckles.
He drops like a sack of laundry.
The third one tries to run.
I catch him by the back of the jacket and haul him off his feet one-handed, slam him face-first into the side of the transport hard enough to leave a crater in the metal.
The fourth one freezes.
Just… freezes.
He’s holding a pistol with both hands, arms shaking so hard the muzzle wobbles in a little figure-eight.
He can’t be more than twenty-two.
Twenty-three.
He looks at my bone-spurred forearms and makes a thin, strangled sound.
“Drop it,” I say quietly.
He drops it.
It hits the pavement and skitters away.
I disarm the other three in under thirty seconds.
Rip weapons from hands.
