Page 199 of Spoils of war
I tried to call on the anger. The rage. The fire.
All of it.
But it stayed buried beneath the fear. I couldn’t pull it to the surface.
It wasn’t just the moon drops. It wasn’t the mist clouding my mind.
It wasme.
But I could feel myself running out of time.
Running out of air.
Suffocating hurts in a way nothing else does, it’s not just the lack of breath, it’s pressure behind your eyes. The way your skull feels like it’s cracking from the inside out.
Focus.
I forced myself inward. It was there, somewhere. Faint, flickering. Crawling up through the fog in my mind.
And beneath it, I felt it.
His heart. Right there. In my reach. One more second and I could—
Then something shattered.
A bottle smashed against his skull, the pressure lifting as the guard stumbled back, and glass exploded, liquid splattering across my face.
I flinched, my eyes squeezing shut, and crumpled to the floor, coughing hard, dragging air back into my lungs.
When I opened my eyes, Will stood above the guard’s limp body, chest heaving, blood on his face. I just pushed myself up with shaking arms and stumbled toward the door. He shouted something, but I couldn’t hear it. The hallway twisted sharply, then spilled out into a wide, open room. At the far end, glass doors stood wide open, letting the smoke curl out onto a narrow balcony that seemed to wrap around the building.
And therehewas.
The man I assumed was the owner of the brothel, stood at the threshold, framed by the night sky. He wasn’t holding Licia by the arms anymore. He had her by the throat.
Her body dangled over the balcony railing like a rag doll in his grip. My stomach dropped straight through the floor.
If he let go… If he so much as twitched…
“Please,” I choked, stumbling forward.
My voice cracked, ripped raw from my chest. “Please—don’t—”
The man’s grip tightened, vicious and final. Licia’s body jerked, then went limp again, helpless in his hands.
"You move, I drop her. DO YOU HEAR ME?!" he roared, eyes wild with adrenaline, with power.
Everything inside me screamed to lunge at him. To rip him apart with my bare hands. But I didn’t move. Because one wrong step and she’d be gone.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t blink. Couldn’t think.
Then I felt it.
Something inside me… shifted.
It wasn’t fire. Or light. It was something older. Darker. A shadow slithered through me, slow and venomous, it curled around my lungs, threaded through my veins.
A part of me I didn’t recognize. It didn’t beg or cry or scream.
