The courtyard is half-repaired from what I did to it. Charred walls. Blown-out windows. One of their watchtowers leaningslightly off-kilter. They haven’t cleaned the blood yet. Good. Let it stink.
They shove me to my knees in the center.
Workers stop hammering. Guards stop walking. Civilians—slaves, mostly—freeze mid-task.
Marj steps out onto the balcony above, draped in something expensive and absurdly clean. Rings glinting on every finger.
She spreads her arms.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she calls, voice amplified through a crackling loudspeaker, “behold your hero.”
A boot cracks into my shoulder. I stay upright.
“He thought he could charge in here alone,” she continues, pacing slowly. “Thought death would make him noble.”
She looks down at me.
“You got a thing for dying meaningful, don’t you?”
I raise my head.
“Wasn’t tryin’ to die,” I say, voice rough from dust and blood.
She laughs.
“Oh honey. Don’t lie to me. I know a suicide charge when I see one.”
Her eyes sharpen.
“You came here with no exit plan. No backup. No support. That ain’t strategy. That’s theater.”
That one lands.
Because she’s right.
I don’t react. Not outwardly. But I feel it—like something sliding under my ribs.
She gestures lazily and one of her guards steps forward, smashing a baton into my thigh. The voltage hits. Muscles seize. I bite down hard enough I taste copper.
“Don’t pass out,” she chides. “You’re the main event.”
They drag me through the compound after that.
Not discreetly.
Every corridor. Every work pit. Every armory.
They shove me forward so people can see my face. See the bruises. The blood dried under my jaw. The chains.
“Look at him,” one guard jeers. “Big bad Butcher. Looks smaller now.”
I don’t give them a reaction.
But I catalog everything.
Door placements. Guard rotations. Camera placements. Structural weaknesses in the west support beams where my earlier blasts compromised the frame.
Escape routes.
