The corridor opens onto a metal staircase that leads upward. He takes it, quickly and deftly flying up the steps.
I follow him, searching for some advantage.
Some strategic play to use against him.
The staircase leads to the roof—a flat expanse of cracked concrete and debris, part of it covered by a large, glass skylight that’s clouded with decades of grime. The gray sky stretches overhead, heavy with clouds that threaten rain.
He turns to face me as I emerge from the staircase.
We clash again in the center of the roof, trading one blow after another. I catch him with a spinning elbow that snaps his head to the side. He retaliates with a knee to my ribs that drives the air from my lungs.
I stumble but refuse to fall.
Instead, I grab at his coat and wrench my leg up to deliver a knee to his stomach. As he doubles over, I wrap my arms around his midsection to flip him over.
He catches my ankle with his and takes us both down. Our backs collide with the ground, pain reverberates up my spine.
We scramble to our feet, heaving even more ragged breaths. I’m dripping blood and sweat, covered in dust and grime.
I’ve lost any semblance of strategy. Any concept ofdiscipline and patience that usually drives me during these conflicts.
Yet the rage remains. It continues burning through me as my mind fills up with thoughts of what he’s done.
He killed my family. He’s threatened my soon-to-be wife and our child.
There’s no more time to waste trading punches and kicks.
This is life or death.
I charge at him with more fury than ever, leaping into the air with my leg pushed out. I’m about to deliver a devastating side kick when he catches my leg and reverses the momentum.
Suddenly I’m airborne in the opposite direction. I’m soaring backward through until I slam into the skylight portion of the roof.
As soon as I collide with the glass, it shatters, fragile after many years in decay. It gives under me, and I’m falling amid shards of glass.
I’m weightless as the roof disappears from view and I crash under.
Then I hit the second floor landing below, any ounce of air beat out of me.
Glass slices into my arms, across my back, cutting up my face. A large shard punches through my abdomen, white-hot agony searing through my entire body.
I try to scream, but only a strangled grunt comes out of me.
I lie in the wreckage, bleeding and broken, staring up at the jagged hole I fell through.
Black Shell appears at the edge, looking down at me. His posture is relaxed and unhurried. He could finish me right now.
We both know it. One leap downward and a flick of a blade across my throat, and he would tie up the loose thread from thirty years ago.
Yet he simply remains where he is, peering down at me as if in pity. As if I’m not worthy of death by his hand.
He turns and walks away. The thud of his footsteps fades into silence.
Even in the wake of his departure, I can’t move. My body is so damn broken I can only lay among the shattered glass and try to remember how to breathe.
I’m half awake, my mind swimming in and out of consciousness.
Monroe.
