I'd seen people fight before, had trained with professionals, but Cal moved as though gravity was a suggestion he was choosing not to follow. He ran straight at the nearest bodyguard, vaulted over a crate at the last second, and used the man's outstretched arms as leverage to flip himself over and land behind him. His knife was already moving before his feet touched the ground and the bodyguard went down clutching a bleeding hamstring.
The second rushed him. Cal dropped low, swept his legs, rolled as the man fell, and came up with a spinning kick that caught the third across the temple. The man staggered and Cal flowed from the kick into a series of strikes that looked choreographed but were leaving people on the floor — using theenvironment like it was part of him, vaulting off crates, turning every obstacle into a weapon, moving like water finding its path through whatever blocked it.
It was brutal and beautiful and completely mesmerising, right up until two more bodyguards appeared at the far end of the loading area.
I engaged before they could flank him.
My approach was nothing like Cal's — no acrobatics, no flow, just raw power applied directly. I grabbed the first man and slammed him into the shelving hard enough to dent the metal, and when he tried to recover I caught his jaw with my fist and followed with an elbow to his ribs. Bones cracked under the impact and he went down. The second was better trained. We traded blows properly, his jab to my ribs blocked and my counter to his head deflected. He swept at my legs and I shifted my weight and stayed standing, drove my knee into his stomach as he came in close. He grunted and staggered backward and I put him down with a strike to his temple before he could recover his footing.
Across the loading area, Cal was still moving, still flowing between two more bodyguards simultaneously, his knife flashing as he wove between them. One tried to grab him and Cal used the momentum to spin, his elbow cracking into the man's nose with a wet sound, blood spraying as the bodyguard stumbled away. The other came at Cal from behind and I opened my mouth to shout a warning, but Cal had already sensed it — dropped low, let the grab miss him by inches, and came up with a strike to the man's kidney that folded him around the impact.
“Dom!”
I turned. Another bodyguard was rushing me with a knife drawn, and I grabbed a metal shelf support, ripped it free, and used it to deflect the blade with a shower of sparks. I drove thesupport into his stomach, followed with a strike to his temple, and he dropped.
The loading area went quiet except for the sounds of men groaning on the floor and our own ragged breathing. Cal stood in the middle of it, bent forward with his hands on his knees and his chest heaving, blood spattered across his shirt — not all of it his. His knife was still in his hand, slick and dark.
“More coming,” he managed between breaths. “We need to move.”
I crossed to him, gripped his arm to steady him. “Can you run?”
“I just did backflips while stabbing people.” He straightened, wincing, and managed something that was almost a grin despite everything. “Come on.”
We found a fire exit at the back of the loading area and pushed through into the cold London night. The rain that had been threatening all evening finally started as we hit the street, cold drops that turned to a downpour within seconds, soaking through our clothes immediately.
“He knows you now,” I said as we moved. “Knows you're hunting him.”
“Good.” Cal's eyes were bright with something beyond the adrenaline. “Let him know. Let him feel what it's like to be hunted.”
“We need to get off the street before they expand the search.”
“Where?”
I looked at him properly in the glow of a streetlamp — blood on his shirt, old bruises alongside new ones, the particular kind of exhaustion that moved in once adrenaline faded and pain took its place.
“There's a park two streets over. Green space, trees, places to disappear.” I started walking and kept to the shadows. “And a chemist on the way. You need supplies.”
“I'm fine.”
“You're bleeding.”
“It's not my blood.”
“Some of it is.” I nodded at his knuckles where the skin had split open again. “And you're moving like your ribs are worse than you're admitting.”
Cal opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Fine. But make it fast. I'd rather not stand around bleeding in public any longer than necessary.”
The chemist was one of those twenty-four-hour places built for tourists and emergencies, all fluorescent lighting and overpriced convenience. A bored clerk behind the counter barely glanced up when we walked in. I grabbed a basket and started moving through the aisles, collecting antiseptic, plasters, gauze, tape, and pain relievers while Cal followed, dripping rainwater on the linoleum floor.
“Planning to perform surgery?” he asked.
“Planning to make sure you don't get an infection.”
“They're just cuts.”
“Cuts from fighting in a museum loading area that probably hasn't been properly cleaned in decades.” I added antibacterial wipes to the basket. “You want to explain to a doctor how you got sepsis from Roman-era dust?”
“When you put it that way.” He reached past me and pulled a bottle of water from the cooler. “Get two of those. And something with sugar. My blood sugar's dropping.”
