Page 17 of Property of Scar

This is my fucking ground!

And it doesn’t get to take anything from me on it.

I step into the hit like I’m looking for a fight instead of trying to avoid one, catching the rogue’s arm before the claws can land. My hand clamps around its wrist while the other locks above the elbow hard enough to crush bone.

Then I crank the bastard sideways with no finesse. There are no fancy moves, just brute force and leverage.

Its body keeps charging forward while I drag the arm in the opposite direction, twisting it across its chest until the whole shoulder pulls tight as a chain ready to snap.

For half a second, the joint fights me, then it blows apart with a wet crack.

The scream that tears out of it is savage and animalistic, the arm hanging dead at its side while it stumbles into the wrecked barstools trying to stay upright. It makes a noise, something sharp and cut off, more shock than anything else.

Good.

Let the rogue feel it.

I stay in close, crowding it before it can recover, before whatever passes for instinct in it can catch up and try to turn this back around. My hand slides from its arm to the back of its neck, fingers digging in, locking down, the position as familiar as the weight of a bike under me.

This part never changes.

Control the movement.

End it!

There’s a moment where everything settles into place, where the fight stops being a fight and starts being a decision, and I don’t hesitate. I spin behind it and hook my arm around its throat, locking my hands together before the rogue can fight its way loose.

Then I wrench hard.

The crack punches through the bar loud and brutal.

Final.

Its whole body drops limp against me straight after, all that rage and hunger cutting out in an instant like somebody ripped the power cord from the wall. For a second, I’m still holding the dead weight upright while broken glass crunches under our boots and the music keeps playing somewhere in the background like none of this shit is unusual.

Then I shove the corpse off me and let it crash to the floor. It hits hard and stays there, dead weight on broken concrete. Just another dumb bastard who thought it could tear through Kings’ territory and survive the experience.

Not happening.

The third one releases the man at the bar.

The civilian hits the floor, gasping, crawling, and I don’t have attention for him right now because the rogue has turned its focus to me, and whatever is driving its behavior tonight is something rawer than standard frenzy. Its eyes are flat, evacuated red, running entirely on hunger and aggression, the same red of my eyes, but I have learned to control my urges. When it lunges, it lunges with everything, no caution or survival instinct, nothing but the overwhelming, feral need to destroy whatever is nearest.

I catch it by the throat.

My back hits the bar hard enough to rattle the bottles behind it, wood biting into my spine as my boots find traction against the floor, and I hold it there, its weight driving in, its hands clawing at my forearm hard enough to tear through leather and drag heat across my skin beneath.

Its jaws snap inches from my face, the sound sharp and brittle, like something breaking that wasn’t meant to.

I can smell what it’s fed on…

Human.

Fresh enough that it hasn’t faded, copper and salt clinging to its mouth, mixing with the sour edge of rot that rides underneath every rogue that’s gone too far.

Something moves through me.

Not anger.