Page 80 of Two Sides of Sin

“Sage.”

The familiar voice cut through the panic, bringing me back to reality. I stopped thrashing and gasping for air. The man shifted slightly, and a faint wash of the perimeter light hit his face.

Julian.

Instant relief washed over me. If he hadn’t been holding my shoulders, I would have collapsed onto the ground.

“They—they broke in,” I babbled, panting hysterically, my fingers weakly gripping his tactical vest. “Someone’s coming. They chased me, Julian, I think they shot me, I don’t know, my leg hurts⁠—”

“Shh. I’ve got you,” he interrupted, dropping to one knee, keeping me upright with one arm while his other hand swept quickly down my right leg. I hissed when his fingers brushed the wound on my thigh.

“It’s a graze,” he assessed, his eyes darkening to near-black as his pupils dilated in anger. “You’ll be fine. But we need to get out of here. It is not safe for you, out in the open like this.”

Before I could answer, the crunch of heavy boots echoed from the end of the alley. The men who were chasing me.

Julian’s entire demeanour shifted. He pushed me gently down until I was crouched behind a stack of wooden pallets hidden away in the shadows.

“Stay here,” he ordered in a soft whisper. I was crying, shaking my head, terrified to be left alone again. He reached out, his thumb quickly wiping a tear from my cheek. “I promise you, I will not let them hurt you. Do not make a sound.”

I nodded, clamping my hand over my mouth.

Julian stood up and walked out of the shadows, deliberately stepping onto the pavement in the path of the two approaching men.

I couldn’t see what happened. I could only listen to the carnage unfold.

There was a shout of surprise, followed immediately by a sickening, wet crunch. A man screamed—a short, abrupt sound that was suddenly cut off. Then, the horrific sound of bone snapping and a heavy thud against the ground.

It lasted less than thirty seconds.

Then… hair raising silence.

A minute ticked by. The sirens blared in the distance, but the alley was dead quiet. My anxiety peaked, my chest tight to the point of pain. Did they shoot him? Is he dead?

Footsteps approached the pallets. Slow. Deliberate.

I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the worst, but strong hands reached down and grabbed my waist, lifting me effortlessly off the ground.

“It’s me,” Julian reassured. He scooped me up into his arms, carrying me against his chest as easily as if I weighed nothing at all. “I’m taking you to the medical triage.”

I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, burying my face against his shoulder. Inhaling sharply, I filled my lungs with the scent of his cologne—a rich, familiar warmth that brought a sudden comfort amid the chaos of the evening. As he carried me out of the alleyway, I forced myself to open my eyes and look back.

The two men who had chased me were lying on the cobblestones. One’s neck was twisted at an angle that defied human anatomy, and the other’s face was caved in beyond recognition. My breath stalled. I remembered Alice’s words: The Terminator. The Machine. Jesus, he really was a machine. No normal human being could do that with their bare hands in thirty seconds.

We reached the makeshift field hospital, which had been set up directly inside the cathedral’s vast, soaring nave. It was chaotic, flooded with harsh fluorescent work lights and the shouts of triage nurses. Julian bypassed the waiting area, carrying me to an empty cot in the back corner and setting me down gently.

The bright lights overhead flickered, finally illuminating us both.

I looked up to thank him, but the words died instantly in my throat. My eyes went wide with shock, horror and something else simmering beneath the surface.

In the dark, I hadn’t been able to see it. But here, under the harsh medical lights, the sight of him was impossible to ignore. Julian was saturated in blood. It soaked his tactical vest, turning the canvas black. It coated his neck, his jaw, and his hands in a thick, wet, horrifying layer of gore. He looked like he had walked out of a slaughterhouse.

“Julian,” I gasped, my voice trembling uncontrollably as I frantically scanned his body for a wound, reaching out with shaking hands. “Julian, are you hurt? Oh my God, are you bleeding?”

He stood perfectly still under the lights, totally unfazed by his own horrific appearance. He looked down at me, his eyes devoid of any human warmth, and delivered a sentence that made the blood freeze in my veins.

“It’s not mine.”

Those three words should have sent me screaming out of the cathedral nave. They should have triggered every basic human survival instinct I possessed, demanding I run as far away from this man as physically possible. He had admitted, with no remorse, that the horrifying amount of blood soaking his clothes, his hands, and his throat belonged only to the men he had just killed—he had not a single injury from the conflict.