I open my door because I know Vitali will win this eventually, and I’d rather get ahead of them. They both scramble out of the car, whisper-shouting at me, but I’m already halfway across the street.
I squeeze around Joe’s truck and head down the alley. Vitali would make a plan and that might be smarter, but I prefer to simply react. You can’t anticipate everything, and it’s your instincts that save you, if anything’s going to.
As I walk into the darkness and grime of the alley, as I stop thinking, I feel a weight lift from me. Part ofme knows that it’s dangerous. I got confused for a second in the club, and that kind of thing happens pretty often. Hell, it happened this morning. But this shit here could be worse. There will be violence, and I know what that might do to my head.
The problem is, I want it to.
I’m starving for violence, for the freedom of it. I need it.
I hear Vitali and Quinn behind me, so I move faster to keep ahead. At an intersection of alleys, I hear someone running somewhere to my right. I head that way, hunting.
I’m used to fighting in the open, one on one, but I find this predatory mode easy to slip into.
There’s an SUV ahead, presumably the DiMaggios’, but it seems to be empty. The reason for that becomes apparent when a noise-suppressed gunshot draws me to a juncture and I spot only three people. Joe’s crew split up to force the DiMaggios out of their vehicle.
The fight is two on one, and I can’t identify them in the dark. I stalk their way, quiet enough that they don’t notice me. One man takes cover behind a dumpster, firing from behind it.
I get to the other side of the dumpster and shove it into him. He yelps, and the other two are startled enough to stall their fight. Two heads whip my way. I manage to see which one is Joe, so I go after the other. I rush him, grabbing him around the middleand slinging him against the wall. He’s so unprepared for it that he barely resists.
He scrambles up, but he doesn’t have a chance. I hit him in the ribs and feel them break. I hit him in the face and he goes down. It’s so unsatisfying that I pick him up and sling him across the alley into the opposite wall.
Shots fire. I wheel around, but the guy I slammed with the dumpster is already on the ground and Joe is lowering his gun.
There’s nothing more for me here, so I stalk back the way I came. I growl when I see men at the end of the alley, but it’s Vitali and Quinn. They stand back and let me pass. My mind glitches because that’s what my handlers used to do: stand back as long as I was going the way they wanted. It’s easier for them to let me move my own feet.
So I keep going.
The next fight is easy to find. I hear shouts, shots, and footsteps. Before I turn the corner into that alley, someone says behind me, “Roman.”
When I don’t respond, they grab my arm. I yank free and wheel on them, snarling. My handlers know better than to touch me.
But it’s Vitali. I do see him. I do know it’s him, but only on a certain level. He’s overlaid with others. But I still stop myself from attacking him.
He says, “I need you to stay back. Joe, Quinn, and I are going ahead of you.”
That’s not acceptable, so I turn away and get moving before any of them can step around me.
“Goddamn it,” Vitali mutters behind me. “At least use your fucking gun.”
My mind glitches again. I forgot I had a gun. Sometimes there are knives or other weapons in the fights but never guns. With a gun, I could shoot anyone, even my handlers.
I pull it from the holster at the small of my back and move to the corner, peering into the alley. It’s too dark to make out all the shapes, so I just walk in. The others are silent behind me, but I can feel their presence.
Surprise is valuable, so none of us fire, not until we’re seen. Someone shouts and spins my way, gun raised. I shoot him.
Then it’s chaos. The fight divides, half of it sweeping toward me. I rush to meet it as shots fire everywhere. Pain flashes across my left forearm. I shoot someone else before the fight gets too close for guns.
I slam into someone, but he goes down so fucking easily. I spin to meet another. This one is bigger, so I get to hit him twice before he goes down too. I still hear shots and shouts, but none of it seems relevant. It’s just background noise as I snap someone’s neck. I toss the body away, frustrated. I need a real fight.
It’s the only time I’m truly free. It’s the only time when all the fucking pressure inside me releases.
But I don’t get that. They’ve given me all these weak opponents, and it’s over too quickly. Bodieslitter the ground. The men who are still standing draw back. Spectators. Handlers. They don’t engage with me. One of them shouts my name. It pings strangely in my brain, unpleasantly, as I turn toward him. I go stalking his way. No one shocks me. No one shoots me.
They should. I might kill him. I’ve killed handlers before.
Another tries to get in front of him but is pushed away. I grab the one who shouted my name by his throat. He doesn’t fight me. He just looks at me with my brother’s face.
Part of me wants to break his neck because I don’t want to see my brother’s face. I don’t want that reality. I want to stay in the reality where I belong. The simple one. The one that makes sense to me—the one whereImake sense.
