Chapter 6 #2
He moved to the laundromat door and drove the heel of his right hand through the glass. It shattered beneath his strength. He forced his shoulder through, shaking glass from his hair and letting it scatter across the cracked tile floor.
Rows of washing machines sat dark and silent.
Wooden benches lined the walls beneath a faded picture of a smiling woman wearing an apron and holding an iron. Laundry baskets overflowed with clothes. Kit tipped the nearest one and dropped into a crouch, rifling through the clothes with stiff, hurried movements.
Glass crunched.
Kit stood so quickly that the satiny blouse near his boots drifted away.
At the shattered glass doorway stood two men, dressed in black, masks covering their lower faces. A rifle was trained on him—
Kit ducked as the suppressed shot buried itself in the wall behind him. Smoke bloomed from the woman’s head in the picture, a hole right between her eyes.
The second man raised his weapon, but the first stilled the shot with an upheld fist, his words muted by the mask, as he called, "Come with us. We don’t have orders to kill you. We will apprehend you by any means necessary."
It was quiet for a moment as they waited for his reply.
Kit took a single step forward. The men tensed.
"My makers should have learned by now," Kit began, "that I am no longer theirs to order."
Kit crashed into both men, wrenching both guns up, as a barrage of shots tore into the ceiling. Dust rained down.
He shoved the men backward until they stumbled out into the narrow streets. It was quiet, but he saw eyes above from one of the balconies, a young face with gaunt, dirty cheeks.
Lunar City was used to crime and violence. No one came. But they all watched.
A strange feeling welled inside Kit as he fought, kicking out with his boot until his heel crashed into a chest. He felt something break beneath his foot and heard a scream.
More bullets. Kit slid to the ground. The spray caught a row of potted plants above, sending clay and soil down on them all.
Away.
He had to get them away from here.
Kit fought with expert precision, herding the men into an alley, far from the line of balconies and peering eyes. The alley ended in a tall concrete wall.
Kit shoved one of the men away, finally getting a good hold on his gun as he ripped it from him. With an anguished cry, the man fell back into a dumpster with a loud clang.
A wet warmth bled through Kit’s gloves. He looked down, finding a few fingers still attached to the grip. Kit threw them to the ground and saw the man clutching his fingerless hand, blood spurting from the missing digits.
The other man spoke into a headset. Kit heard the sudden sound of thumping footsteps. Light swept over the alley. He turned to see a group of men storming in, guns trained on him.
Kit could not see past the light. He covered his face with his forearm and released a sound bordering on a frightened hiss.
"Kiton Blackfall, we are here to get you to comply with your orders—return to the base. Come peacefully." Guns cocked. "Or we will shoot."
Kit didn’t waste time. He sprinted for the wall, using momentum to gain height, and then pushed himself off of it until he was at the back of the group of men, trapping them all inside the alley.
Curses rang out as they spun and turned their aim on him.
Kit advanced. A gun barrel pressed to his chest.
Kit stared right into the leader’s eyes. "I will not return, return—return to the base." He echoed the words imprinted over his vision.
Return to the base. Return to the base. Re—
"He’s fucking crazy. He’s gone rogue," someone whispered.
"Rogue," Kit mused, reaching for the barrel of the gun and forcing it down.
The leader groaned, trying to keep aim, but Kit’s strength was unparalleled. He forced down on the grip until the steel muzzle was bent nearly in half.
Kit’s breaths were even as snow fell around them all. He jerked the gun out of the leader’s hands, crushing the ammo cartridge in his fist until the metal liquefied. Bullets clinked uselessly to the ground.
"Soldiers! Fire—" The leader’s voice turned to a broken rasp as Kit reached forward and shoved his right hand straight through his chest. He ripped his hand away, a gaping hole in the leader’s chest. The body collapsed.
Bullets lit up the night air. Unsuppressed, the gunfire rang brutally through his heightened senses.
The Phoenix saw red.
He ripped, he tore, he punched, he growled like a feral animal. But he was no animal. He was a machine.
He had been made this way.
When the alley fell silent, Kit found himself kneeling on the ground, surrounded by broken body parts and the cracked, crushed metal of guns. Snow melted against the pools of warm blood. He stood and surveyed the wreckage.
A man was pinned to the dumpster by a jagged sheet of metal, shoved straight through his chest. He wheezed as Kit met his eyes.
"You—" Blood dripped over his lips. "You fucking monster. Why go rogue?"
"Because I want her," Kit said softly. "Vesperin. She makes the numbness disappear. I will not rest until I have her."
"All this for that Blackfall bitch? You psycho—"
Kit’s hand snapped forward, reaching for the piece of metal in his chest. He felt it catch against bone. "If you are scared of me, blame who sent you."
Kit’s eyes lowered to the red blinking light attached to the man’s vest.
"Mother, Father, this is what you made me to be. Do not send any more of your people for me." He got closer. "I will kill them all."
Kit twisted his arm up, and the man screamed as the metal cut through his chest. He slumped over, dead.
Blood splattered the small lens. Kit did not wipe it away.
"You made me hurt Vesperin."
Something in his chest twisted painfully. He gripped his hair with bloodied gloves, turning to stare at the mess of the alley.
He swallowed, then swallowed again when something in his throat caught.
His fingers twitched, tapping out a code only he knew onto his thigh.
Eight letters. Three vowels. Five consonants.
"Vesperin, Vesperin, Vesperin."
With that name haunting him, Kit left another message for his makers—one they could never ignore.
Let all know who he hunted.
Rin narrowed her eyes as Nessen hunched over a large computer.
The soft cuffs on her wrist itched. Her fingers twitched.
"Stop that!" Rhyden barked, making Rin jump, the leather of the chair beneath her creaking.
An electrode at her left temple popped off from her quick movements, and the machines began beeping.
Rhyden cursed, storming forward. "What the fuck did Nessen tell you, idiot?" He reached for her wrist and grabbed it so tightly she felt her bones press together. "No fucking moving. Unless you want to sabotage this. Is that your plan?"
Rin winced as Rhyden shoved her hair away from her temples and placed the electrode back in its spot. Then, he reached for her wrists and tightened each cuff. He grabbed an end and pulled it taut, and she grimaced.
He dropped her hand, pointing a finger at her. "No moving."
Rin slumped back against the chair, and Rhyden’s red eyes dropped to her throat.
"What’s wrong with you this morning?" she grumbled.
Rhyden’s jaw ticked as he stared down at her. He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, reaching up to scrub over his sharp jawline. "None of your goddamned business, wife." He promptly turned his eyes away from her, staring at Nessen and the monitors.
Rin bristled. The tension between them was suffocating.
She didn’t know who would drown beneath it first. She was ready to tell Rhyden exactly what she thought of his bullshit, but before the words left her mouth, footsteps clanged over the metal stairs near the armored vehicles as Lucien and Cyrus walked into the lab area.
Cyrus loped toward her, red hair flopping over his forehead.
"Back the fuck off." Rhyden slapped his chest.
The incubus flicked a water droplet at Rhyden’s cheek. "Need to cool down there, buddy?"
Rin tuned out their bickering as Lucien came to stand at her other side. She looked up and met his eyes, a blush rising to her cheeks.
"Hi," she whispered.
Lucien drifted a fingertip over her hairline, expertly avoiding the electrodes. "Hi, sweet girl."
Rin’s teeth sank into her lower lip as she remembered last night.
She’d woken up at 6 AM to the soft melody of the alarm on Lucien’s phone—and he’d still been inside her. He’d turned his alarm off and nestled into her neck, but neither had gone back to sleep.
He’d made love to her again, slow and tender as he rolled on top of her and kissed her.
Only when they were sated, had he pulled out of her, fingers dipping to her core as he’d collected the warmth of their shared arousal, slowly trickling from between her thighs.
Wide-eyed, she’d stared up at him as he rubbed it along her lower lip with a soft, yet unyielding command, Open.
Rin shivered as Lucien stroked the same finger over her hairline, down her cheek. He tapped against her lips, and the sounds in the lab faded to nothing as everything in her narrowed to him.
Lucien tugged her lower lip. "How do you feel?"
"I’m fine," Rin managed. "Nessen is trying to test my Stella levels again—and the Nova." Her breath hitched as he traced her cupid’s bow.
"Not that. How do you feel?" Behind his glasses, his cool green eyes grew dark as they traveled down the line of her body.
Rin faltered. "Oh."
She was saved from answering as Cyrus sat in a rolling chair, resting his chin on his hands as his purple eyes flicked from the monitors to her.
"God, you smell absolutely… delicious this morning.
Sweet cherries, so ripe the flesh just melts on your tongue.
Not from dreams, though," he said, almost to himself.
"Dreams have an almost airy taste. This was from—" A faint red glow flared as he smiled lasciviously.
"Stop," Rhyden and Lucien said in unison.
The red glimmers disappeared. Cyrus huffed, dejected.
"We need Vesperin untouched," Lucien started.