Don’t burn, I told myself. Save the Light.
The guard on the left lunged. He moved with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible for a man of his size, swinging a weighted shock-baton at my head.
I ducked, the baton sizzling through the air inches above my hair. I lunged forward, getting past his reach and into his personal space—police training taking over as muscle memory eclipsed the fear.
I drove the dagger into the gap in his armour, right between the neck and the shoulder.
The effect was instant.
The guard convulsed. The iron disrupted the flow of his augmentation. The magic holding him together snapped. He collapsed, unconscious before he hit the ground.
One down.
The second guard didn’t make the same mistake. He stopped, assessing me, his milky eyes narrowing behind the visor. He saw the dagger. He knew what it was.
He holstered his baton and drew a sidearm.
Shit.
I threw myself to the right, diving behind a ventilation unit as the first shot rang out. Concrete chips sprayed my face.
“Drop the blade,” the guard shouted, his voice distorted and metallic through the helmet.
He advanced, firing methodically to keep me pinned.
I huddled against the metal casing of the vent, calculating the distance. The knife required close quarters, but the guard kept his range. Releasing a full blast of Light was too risky; I was still a novice at gauging the output, and I feared draining my reserves before I even reached the machine.
I needed a distraction instead.
I reached for the thread—avoiding the volatile reservoir of Light and focusing on the thin, freezing thread of Shadow dormant in my chest. It was the piece of Riven I carried with me, a trace of his essence that felt more stable than the fire in my own blood.
I closed my eyes and tugged.
The shadows stretching from the ventilation unit lengthened. They writhed, turning from flat grey shapes into grasping tendrils.
The guard paused, glancing down as the darkness surged from the gravel and curled around his boots. The shadows lacked the strength to anchor him, but they were enough to disrupt his footing.
He fired a panicked shot into the floor.
I moved.
I vaulted over the vent, sprinting across the gravel while he was still fighting the dark. He tried to bring the gun up, but I was already in his space. I didn’t reach for my Light; I reached for his wrist.
I slammed the heel of my hand into the side of his joint, a sharp, practiced blow that sent the gun skittering across the roof.
Before he could recover, I spun, driving my elbow into hisfaceplate. The visor cracked under the impact. He staggered back, flailing, blinded by the pain and the sudden proximity. I swept his legs out from under him and followed through with a brutal kick to his chest, sending him sliding across the loose gravel towards the edge of the roof.
He scrambled for purchase, but his momentum carried him over the low parapet.
“No!” The word was torn from me by pure instinct. I lunged, my hand snapping out to grab his vest, but my fingers caught only empty air.
His scream was swallowed by the wind.
I stood at the edge, my pulse hammering. I was a detective. I was sworn to save lives. Guilt tightened my throat as his shape vanished into the smog and neon below, but I shoved it down. Behind me, the Extractor hummed—a threat that if I failed, thousands more would follow.
I forced myself to turn away from the ledge and face the machine.
Silence returned to the roof, broken only by the terrifying churn of the Extractor.
