Page 103 of Jagger's Remorse
Her knife—where did that come from?—opens his femoral artery in one precise slash.
He drops, spraying arterial blood across the concrete.
But there are too many, and she's protecting the old ladies, limiting her mobility.
While she's engaged with two, a third circles behind, using the chaos as cover.
He raises a .45, aims at Raven with steady hands.
I'm too far away. Can't get a clear shot through the melee.
"No!" Scarlett must have eyes in the back of her head.
She spins, throwing herself between them.
The gun fires.
The sound cuts through everything else, sharp and final.
She jerks, staggers.
Blood blooms across her right shoulder, through and through from the look of it.
She's still standing, but barely.
Something primal roars to life in my chest.
Not rage. Something older, deeper.
The thing that lived in men before we learned to be civilized.
Before we learned to temper violence with mercy.
I move through the attackers like death itself.
Efficient. Brutal. No wasted motion.
A throat opens under my knife, spraying hot across my face.
A skull caves under my fist, brain matter and bone fragments painting the wall.
A spine snaps in my hands with a sound like wet kindling.
I don't use the gun—too impersonal. This requires touch. Requires them to see their death coming.
Later, Hammer will tell me he's never seen anything like it.
That I moved like something possessed.
That grown men backed away rather than face me.
That I smiled the whole time.
I don't remember most of it.
Just red haze and the need to reach her.
Just the feeling of bones breaking and the warmth of blood and the absolute certainty that anyone between me and Scarlett needs to die.
