Fourteen
Imake it three steps down the corridor before my legs stop working.
I don't collapse. I'm too old, too disciplined, too aware of the guards stationed at the end of the hall who would see their invincible leader crumble like a man made of ash. Instead, I stop walking. I put my hand against the wall. And I stand there, breathing, while something inside me comes apart.
I don't know if you can.
Her words keep replaying. Each time, they cut deeper.
The wall is cool and solid beneath my palm. I focus on that sensation, try to anchor myself in something physical and real, the way I've done a thousand times when emotion threatened to overwhelm discipline.
It doesn't work.
When I pull my hand away, I leave a smear of red on the white paint. Their blood. Still on my hands. I stare at the mark for a long moment, this visible evidence of what I did, what I became, and then I keep walking.
I should send someone to clean it. I don't.
I look down at my hands. Blood under my fingernails. Blood dried into the creases of my knuckles. Not hers, theirs. The vampires I tore apart in that alley. I can still feel the give of flesh, the crack of bone, the wet heat of it. I killed them with my bare hands because weapons would have been too slow, too clean, too merciful.
I don't remember making the decision to kill. I remember seeing her on the ground, blood pooling beneath her, and then I remember standing in silence surrounded by bodies. Everything between is red and rage and the sound of my own snarling.
I haven't lost control like that since I was a fledgling. Since the early years when the hunger was new and overwhelming, and I hadn't yet learned to leash the monster inside me.
Behind me, I hear Dalton enter the medical room. Hear his quiet voice asking Celeste questions about her pain levels. Hear her responses, steady despite everything, because she's stronger than anyone I've ever met.
Stronger than me, certainly.
I push off the wall and force myself to walk. One step. Another. My body knows how to do this even when my mind has abandoned the effort.
I find myself in the security center without remembering the journey there. Julian is already present, his arm in a sling, dried blood still flaking from a cut above his eye. Three of his team members are with him, all of them bearing wounds in various stages of healing. The fourth is in the medical wing, unconscious. The fifth didn't survive.
"Sir." Julian straightens when he sees me, then stops. Something in my expression makes him pause. "The attackers who hit our position, we killed two. The others escaped before we could pursue. We were too focused on getting to Celeste's location."
"How many escaped?"
"Three, maybe four. They scattered when they realized we'd broken through." His jaw tightens with frustration. "We should have captured at least one. But when we heard the fighting from her location, we…"
"You made the right call."
He nods, but I can see he doesn't believe it. A commander's instinct, always questioning, always finding fault with his own decisions. I understand that instinct intimately.
"Casualties?" I ask.
"Archer is dead. Patricia is critical but stable. The rest of us will heal."
Archer is dead. Twelve years in my service. Somewhere in Savannah, a wife and daughter who haven't seen him since he was turned will never know what happened to him.
"And the attackers who went after Celeste?" Julian asks. "How many did we capture?"
The question hits like a blade between the ribs.
Capture. That was the point. The entire reason for tonight. Use Celeste to draw them out, capture Konstantin's operatives, extract intelligence about his plans, his timeline, his network. Trade her safety for information that could save dozens of lives.
"None," I say.
Julian frowns. "None? They all escaped?"
"They're all dead."
