Canon’s face changes, the certainty in his expression disappearing. The easy contempt he’s worn since I was dragged into this room shifts into calculation, then anger, then something harder and more brittle. He looks toward the door as another shot cracks from the hall. A Rogue shouts Saint’s name like a warning, before the shout cuts off halfway through.
Varina whispers, “Dad.”
Canon doesn’t answer her. He looks at Rook. “Hold the door.”
Rook moves, but he doesn’t get there in time. The door comes open like the building itself has decided to give way, Saint on the other side, covered in blood.
Most of it isn’t his, the crimson color streaked along his forearms and darkening the front of his shirt and slicked one side of his jaw in a way that looks less like injury than passage. He has a gun in one hand and a knife in the other, both already wet with blood. His eyes find the room before they find me, sweeping threats in the space of one breath.
Then Saint sees me and the whole room seems to catch around that single second.
I have never seen his face do that before. I’ve seen the monster Obsidian whispers about, the one who can turn a warehouse into a lesson and walk out with steady hands. This is none of those things. His face opens around something so raw I almost look away. His eyes move over my swollen face as a barely humansound pulls from his chest, Canon lifting his gun before I can even breathe around it.
Saint smirks and stalks toward Rook, slamming the side of his knife hand into Rook’s wrist and driving his shoulder into the man’s chest. Canon’s shot goes wide as Rook crashes back against the wall, Saint following with a vicious precision that has nothing performative in it. He cuts him, disarms him, and drives him down in three movements so fast my swollen eye can barely track them. Rook hits the concrete hard, groaning around blood, and Saint steps over him like he’s already beneath notice.
Canon fires again. Saint twists, but the shot bites into the wood behind him instead of his body. His eyes keep snapping back, checking that I’m still there. The focus in him is terrifying because it’s barely control. He moves through the last men between us with skill, but there’s something frantic under it that makes every hit heavier.
One Rogue comes at him from the left with a tire iron. Saint catches the swing on his forearm with a grunt I feel more than hear, drives his knife into the man’s side, and rips it free before shoving him into Ash’s line. Ash puts him down. Another man grabs Saint from behind, and Saint slams his head backward into the man’s face hard enough to break something with a wet crack, then turns and buries the knife under his ribs.
Blood sprays across Saint’s throat but he doesn’t even blink.
Canon comes out from behind the bench with a knife this time, not the gun. He moves fast for his age, faster than he ever moved toward me for anything except disappointment. Saint meets him in the middle of the room, the collision between them explosive.
They hit the tool bench hard enough to scatter metal across the floor. Canon drives a knee into Saint’s thigh. Saint answers with an elbow to the side of his head. Canon slashes, and Saint jerks back, but the blade still catches him across the side, opening adark line through his shirt. My breath leaves me in a broken sound when I see the blood bloom there.
“Saint,” I try to push out, but it comes out more like air than language.
His head turns a fraction anyway which costs him nearly everything. Canon drives the knife in again, this time lower, a quick brutal stab that sinks into Saint’s side before Saint catches his wrist. Saint’s face tightens, and for one terrible second the room tilts around the sight of the blade in him.
Saint looks down at the knife in his side, then back at Canon. “You should’ve never taken what’s mine.”
Canon tries to twist the blade but Saint lets out a deviant cackle before snapping my father’s wrist. The sound cuts through everything. Canon’s scream follows, Saint using the broken angle to drive him backward. He hits him once in the ribs, once in the throat, then catches him by the front of his cut and slams him against the workbench so hard the tools jump. Canon’s knife clatters to the floor as Saint takes his own blade in a fist slick with blood and presses it under Canon’s jaw.
Canon’s eyes find mine over Saint’s shoulder, and for the first time in my life, my father looks afraid of something that started with me.
Saint leans closer, his voice dropping several octaves. “You put hands on my husband.”
Canon spits blood. “He’s mine.”
Saint’s face twists further. “You had twenty-seven years to make that true.”
Canon jerks against him, but Saint’s hand stays locked in his cut and the blade at his throat doesn’t move. “Masters, he gave us the corridor.”
“He gave you enough rope to hang yourself with.” Saint’s voice shakes on the last word, with barely contained fury. “And you were stupid enough to pull.”
Canon’s eyes flick toward me again. “He broke. He’s useless for you. He…”
Saint drives his fist into Canon’s face so hard Canon’s head snaps back against the bench. “Don’t you fucking talk about him.”
He puts Canon down with the same focused brutality he brought into the room, but this is personal in a way the rest wasn’t. He takes him apart until Canon stops reaching, speaking, and being the shape of authority my body remembers fearing. And I watch every glorious moment of it as Canon’s blood splatters across the concrete.
With every punch, hit, and furious rage that Saint throws at him, I see the fight die from my fathers eyes. Saint positions his knife at Canon’s throat again, shallow enough to make him freeze, deep enough to draw a line of red. When Canon finally drops to the floor, he lands on his side, coughing blood onto concrete, one hand curled uselessly near his broken wrist.
Saint stands over him, Canon meeting his gaze. “You won’t do anything to me. Not with the man you came in here for watching you. I’m his father.”
An almost eerie laugh pulls from Saint as he crouches down in front of Canon, Saint’s knife scraping across my father’s cheek. “You’re no father. Not even to Varina. I’d spare you if my husband had been intact. As it is…” Saint trails off before raising his knife and jamming it into Canon’s chest.
I wince, watching as the light dies from my father’s eyes. There’s no sorrow in losing that man except for the fact that he did raise me. Saint stands and stalks toward me in the next second after removing the blade, his knife slicing through the strap at my right wrist, then the left.
