Not close yet. Approaching fast.
Several gang members curse. Those still able to move begin scrambling toward side exits, dragging the injured with them. Ron staggers upright, one hand over his face, blood between his fingers. He looks at me, and the hatred in his eyes is clean enough to be useful.
This is not over.
He flees through a rear passage with two men helping him.
I could follow.
I do not.
The promise holds me in place, and the sirens decide what comes next.
Police drones sweep over the primate house first, white lights slicing through broken windows. “Vedder City Municipal Police. Remain where you are. Hands visible.”
I look down at my hands. Blood covers my knuckles. Some mine. Most not.
The officers enter in armor a minute later, cautious and heavily armed, faces hidden behind rain-slick visors. They take in the groaning gang members, broken displays, shattered gates, and me standing at the center of it all like the answer to every accusation. Their weapons rise.
“On your knees!” one shouts.
I could disarm three before the fourth fires. I could reach the side exit before their drones adjust. I could vanish into Halo’s tunnels and make the arrest report another rumor.
Then Evie’s face comes to me.
Not the ruined bakery. Not the tears. Her face when she asked me to promise. Her voice saying, You are someone who keeps trying to believe the worst thing about himself.
If I fight police, she becomes part of that story. The bakery becomes the place where the monster eats, the woman hehaunts, the reason he went feral. Every whisper about her becomes harder to kill than any gang member.
I kneel.
The concrete is wet beneath my knees.
“Hands behind your head!”
I comply.
One officer hesitates, perhaps surprised obedience came so easily. Another approaches with restraint cuffs designed for larger species. Sensible. The cuffs lock around my wrists with a magnetic clack, heavy but insufficient if I truly wanted them broken.
I do not break them.
A younger officer looks at my bleeding cheek and then at the bodies around us. “Holy hell.”
The older one says, “You have the right to remain silent.”
“I know.”
“Name?”
“Kauss.”
“Surname?”
“No.”
“Just Kauss?”
“Yes.”
