Page 211 of Villainous Rise

Death was circling her, trying to steal the only thing in this miserable world I claimed as mine. It couldn’t have her. She belonged to me and the universe did not have permission to take her.

Behind me, Annie’s screams pierced the air, each one driving a spike of terror deeper into my chest. I couldn’t look back. Not when her life hung by a thread growing thinner with each passing second.

Then, silence.

The absence of her cries was the most terrifying thing I’d ever experienced. My heart stuttered to a stop.

“ANNIE!” I spun around, the half-finished cuff still clutched in my trembling hands.

The sight before me froze me in place. Helios, barely conscious, had his hands pressed against Annie’s temples. Golden light pulsed between them, but it was contained. Controlled. Annie’s back was no longer arching in agony; her face, though strained, was no longer contorted in unbearable pain.

For one horrifying moment, I thought⁠—

The image was burned into my mind: Annie’s lifeless body, her eyes vacant, that golden light extinguished because I wasn’t fast enough. Because I failed her when she needed me most.

I forced myself to turn back to my work, but the vision haunted me.

If she was gone, there was no reason to hold back the monster she had so willingly accepted. If she was dead, the rest of the world was going to bleed with me.

“Hurry,” Helios gasped, his voice strained. “I can’t hold it.”

The cuff took shape under my hands as I forced the Hammer’s energy through pathways too narrow, too delicate for this kind of acceleration. A sharp crack echoed through my arm as bone splintered. I would gladly shred my own anatomy to keep her breathing.

“Hold on, Annie,” I whispered as I made the final adjustments, checking connections that would normally require hours of testing. No time for that. No time for anything but desperate hope.

I turned, the completed cuff clutched in my trembling hand. Helios was pale, sweat pouring down his face as he struggled to contain the energy flowing between him and Annie.

“Move,” I ordered, pushing past Havoc to reach her side.

I gently removed the failed cuff from her wrist, wincing as a surge of energy scorched my fingers. The new cuff clicked into place, and I immediately began calibration, my fingers dancing across its surface.

The Hammer continued to burn through my nervous system as I poured the last of its energy into the final calibration. Muscle tissue tore inside my forearm as another bone snapped. The physical cost meant absolutely nothing. I was buying her life with my own flesh and the exchange rate was entirely in my favor.

The golden light finally dimmed as the cuff stabilized and Annie’s body went limp on the workbench.

“Annie?” Her breathing was shallow but steady, her skin no longer glowing with that terrible light. She was unconscious, but alive.

“Number Twelve, get in here now. Medical emergency,” I said through comms.

Havoc approached from the other side of the bench, his expression unreadable as he gently brushed Annie’s hair from her face.

I reached for her hand, wanting to feel the reassurance of her pulse beneath my fingertips, but my arm didn’t respond. I frowned, trying again. Nothing.

“Oh shit,” I muttered, looking down at my right arm.

Blood was pooling beneath me on the floor—a shocking amount of it. How long had that been happening? I looked around and saw a trail of crimson droplets leading from my workstation to where I was standing.

“Suit, disengage right arm,” I commanded, my voice sounding strangely distant.

The armor panels fell away. The Hammer had completely shredded my right arm from the inside out. Jagged metal components and white shards of my radius protruded through flayed skin. Blood pulsed steadily from the ruined arteries with each heartbeat.

But the crimson puddle spreading over the floor was simply a receipt. It was the exact currency required to keep what belonged to me.

The world tilted at an uncomfortable angle as I stared at my arm. Something was wrong, beyond the obvious mangling of flesh, circuitry, and metal. The wound should have already been closing, bone knitting back together. Instead, blood continued to pour from the injury, spreading beneath me in an ever-widening circle.

“The Hammer,” I muttered, understanding dawning through the fog creeping into my thoughts. “It’s interfering with my healing.”

The lab doors slid open as Number Twelve rushed in, medical kit in hand. His eyes went to Annie on the workbench, but then he spotted me.