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“Wait.” Senna spoke just above a whisper. “Take me with you.”

Shaking his head, Titus signaled for her to stay put and stepped out of the tent. Nothing moved, save for the flickering bonfire and the still-burning tent at the other end of the camp.

Instinct told him to take cover, but the quiet hum through the air beat him to it, slamming into his chest. A bullet, but not like any normal ammunition. He pried it out of him, holding it up to examine the foreign object armed with a needle at its tip, durable enough to penetrate his skin.

The chasing sensation of dizziness told him it carried a potent poison, stronger than that which lined the tips of the prods Legion soldiers had often used to subdue him during his time in Calico. The toxin moved through him quicker than any other, with the kind of noxious intensity that had him wondering if it might be powerful enough to kill him.

As he backed himself to the side of the tent, another thumped into his leg. Another in his bicep. On a grunt, he tumbled to the ground as the poison took hold, the capsules bursting inside his veins, releasing a toxicity that squeezed like a tight fist around his lungs.

He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t move.

Another bullet hit his chest, his muscles hardly flinching with the impact. His breaths turned laborious, his heart rate slowing. Slowing.

Two dozen Legion soldiers edged toward him, every one of them armed.

Titus was powerless to stop them. Leaning to the side, he heaved up his last meal as the venom in his blood became too concentrated. Too many bullets.

The line of soldiers parted, and another of them stepped forward and removed the canister mask hiding his face. His signature black uniform carried decorations of a more seasoned Legion officer, but he wasn’t the highest ranked, given his insignia only bore three out of four stars.

Vision blurring, Titus blinked and shook his head to hold onto the features of the man, which were fading into the fringes. His eye. The pupil of his left eye appeared elongated in a way that made it look like a snake’s eye. Such details were important to remember for when he’d ultimately take his revenge.

“Did I not tell you? These bullets could put down a rhino!” A second man flanked Snake Eye, one who didn’t wear the uniform of a soldier, but the slightly worn fabric of a marauder. A full head of thick, blond curls and bright blue eyes gave an air of youth that belied the cracks and wrinkles of his weathered skin. Where there should’ve been fingers on his right hand were nothing more than a thumb and a pinky, separated by a curved stretch of skin , giving the appearance of a claw. Like a lobster’s. Another deformity.

Not that they weren’t uncommon anymore, but Titus had never encountered as many outside of Calico, where they had intentionally created such defects.

“What do you call this again?” Snake Eye asked, examining one of the bullet cases that’d hit Titus earlier. “And where do you acquire such a potent concoction?”

“It’s called Red Lotus. Made by a slave of mine,” the blond said with an oil-slick voice that reminded Titus of the docs at Calico. “An older woman borne of the few tribes that survived the Dredge. They often laced their needles with it. Very effective against Ragers. And Alphas, as you can see. We’ll take both of them.”

Since when did Legion side with marauders? Their hatred for each other was on par with the Alphas’ loathing of the scientists who’d tormented them.

“No. My men were promised an Alpha. We’ll keep the one in custody. You can have this one.”

“He’s been shot. Many times. He won’t survive the poison.”

“Sir!” The voice arrived from somewhere beyond the men, and Titus desperately clung to consciousness in a slowly failing effort to know his fate. “She was hiding in the tent.”

From the crowd behind the two bickering men, a soldier shoved Senna forward, the force tripping her to the ground, where she tumbled just a few feet from Titus.

Each inhale burned like flames inside his chest. His muscles turned laxer with each passing second.

The blond marauder kept his eyes on Titus as he knelt down alongside her. The smile on his face carried an evil glint that prodded Titus forward, despite the weakness swallowing up the strength of his muscles.

“This is the beauty you killed my man to save?” The blond dragged one of his gnarled fingers across her jaw and licked the invisible path.

Fingers clawing into the dirt, Titus willed his arms to haul him close enough. Every movement felt as if boulders weighed him down, and the blackness on the fringes of his vision threatened with the kind of darkness from which he might never crawl out.

“Where I come from, vengeance is paid in like. Eye for an eye.” The blond held the blade up to her eye, and his grin widened.

“No.” Titus coughed, the spittle of blood hitting the dirt beneath him.

Head wrenched back, Senna whimpered, staring down her nose at Titus.

“What is the meaning of this!” The unfamiliar voice drew Titus’s waning attention toward a gray-haired man making his way through the crowd of surrounding Legion. “Who sanctioned the attack on this hive?”

The snake-eyed Legion soldier who’d doffed his mask snapped to attention, shoulders back and chin high. “I did. Sir.”