The Eight came around the corner like a wave, their bodies moving in perfect synchronization, their faces blank and their eyes fixed on the scene before them. They didn't run, they flowed, a single entity expressed through multiple forms, and the sheer wrongness of their unified movement made even the immortals fighting Dimitri pause.
"What the—" the bald one started.
He never finished the sentence.
Number Two reached him first, moving faster than anything Mattie had ever seen. One moment the monster was standing over her, and the next, his body was flying through the air, propelled by a blow that hadn't even registered as motion.
The rest of the Eight converged on the remaining immortals with terrifying, coordinated power. Number One grabbed the soldier who had hurt Mattie's wrist, and Number Four tackled another, wrestling him to the ground. Numbers Five through Eight surrounded the last two, cutting off any escape.
And then the killing began.
Frozen and unable to look away, even though the excruciating pain was blurring her vision, Mattie watched as Dave systematically destroyed the four males who had attacked her.
The immortals tried to fight back, but they were as outmatched against Dave as she and Dimitri had been outmatched against them. The Eight moved as one mind, their enhanced bodies moving faster than her eyes could track, but she heard the snapping of bones as fists collided with ribs and punched through, and she saw the hearts being ripped from chests.
One. Two. Three. Four.
It wasn't a fight.
It was an execution.
The bodies fell, crumpling to the ground with the wet, heavy sound of meat hitting pavement. Blood pooled beneath them, spreading in dark rivers across the stones.
Mattie couldn't breathe. Could only kneel on the bloody ground with her crushed fingers cradled against her chest and watch Dave's killing spree.
Number One turned to look at her. "You are injured." His voice was calm, almost gentle, completely at odds with the carnage surrounding them.
Mattie couldn't answer. Her voice had abandoned her.
Dimitri dropped to his knees beside her, his hands reaching for her but hesitating, not knowing where to touch without causing more pain.
"Mattie, look at me. Are you okay?"
She turned her head slowly, meeting his eyes. He was bloodied all over, but the cuts and bruises were already healing. He looked not only unharmed but fierce and energized, like he had enjoyed the fight.
Was he turning into a monster like them?
"My fingers," she whispered.
He looked down at her hand, at the swollen, misshapen digits that had been crushed beneath the immortal's boot. His face went pale, then flushed with fury.
"Those bastards."
"She will heal." Number One crouched beside them, his movements smooth and unhurried despite the bodies cooling mere feet away. "They will not."
Dimitri looked up at the enhanced soldier. "How did you get here so fast?"
"The phone." Number One held up the device that he must have retrieved from where the bald immortal had dropped it. "Mattie called me."
"I didn't," she whispered. "It fell out of my hand."
"It was programmed to speed dial me. The fall must have triggered it. The moment I saw your name on the display, I knew you were in trouble. Luckily, I was not far from here."
"Luckily," she repeated, turning toward what that luck had wrought.
"Don't look," Dimitri said, turning her face away from the carnage and pulling her head against his chest. "Don't look at them."
But she'd already seen enough. She would always see the four bodies, the four hearts, and the four lives that had ended in seconds because they had wanted to harm someone Dave cared about.
