“I swear! I just move the crates. They don't tell us anything.”
“Then you're useless.”
I stared down at him. At his terrified face. At the way his hands shook. He was maybe twenty-five. Maybe younger. Somebody's son. Somebody's brother.
He lunged.
Faster than I expected. His shoulder drove into my ribs, knocking the bow from my hands. We hit the ground hard, rolling across broken glass and spent shell casings. He was on top of me, fist connecting with my jaw, and stars exploded across my vision.
I tasted copper.
He hit me again. Then again. Each blow rattled my skull, and Irealized through the haze that this one was trained. Military, maybe. Or someone who'd learned to fight in places where losing meant dying.
His hands found my throat, squeezing.
I drove my knee up between his legs. He grunted, grip loosening, and I twisted my hips, throwing him off. Scrambled to my feet as he did the same. We circled each other, both breathing hard, both bleeding.
He pulled a knife from his belt. Eight inches of serrated steel.
“Come on,” he growled.
I drew mine.
He came at me fast, slashing high. I ducked under it, felt the blade whistle past my ear. Countered with a strike at his ribs. He blocked with his forearm, twisted, and drove his elbow into my temple.
My vision blurred. I staggered back, barely getting my knife up in time to parry his next strike. Metal screeched against metal. He was stronger than me, heavier, using his weight to drive me back against the crates.
His blade scraped across my shoulder, cutting through fabric and skin. Heat bloomed, sharp and immediate.
I snarled and slammed my forehead into his nose. Felt cartilage crunch. Blood sprayed across both our faces. He roared, stumbling back, and I didn't give him time to recover. Kicked his knee, heard something pop. He went down.
I was on him before he hit the concrete. Kicked the knife from his hand. Dropped my own and grabbed my bow from where it had fallen. Drew an arrow in one fluid motion and pressed the obsidian tip against his throat.
He froze. Eyes wild. Chest heaving.
“The city takes back what it's owed,” I said quietly.
I shifted the angle and drove the arrow through his shoulder, pinning him to the wooden pallet behind him. He screamed, raw and animal, thrashing against the shaft.
But he wasn't going anywhere.
Police sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer. I moved fast,pulling arrows from bodies where I could, leaving the ones too embedded to retrieve. I grabbed a rag from one of the crates and wiped down the rifle I'd used, then tossed it onto the pile of corpses.
Let them think it was gang violence. Rival traffickers. Anything but the truth.
I vaulted back up the crates, climbing toward the skylight. Rain poured through the opening, washing the blood from my gloves. I could hear voices outside now. Police. Shouting orders.
I pulled myself through the skylight and onto the roof, then sprinted across the slick surface. Jumped the gap to the next building. Then the next. Putting distance between me and the carnage.
By the time the police breached the warehouse, I was six blocks away, standing on a rooftop overlooking the Thames. The rain had soaked through my coat, plastering my hair to my skull. I pulled off the hood and sucked in air, letting the cold bite into my lungs.
My hands were shaking now. Adrenaline crash. It happened every time.
I stared at my reflection in a puddle at my feet. Blood on my jaw. Rain in my eyes. The same boy who'd knelt beside his mother's body eighteen years ago, now unrecognizable.
“Be more than this,”she'd said.
I laughed. Sharp and bitter and swallowed by the storm.
