Pandora #2
The other two men lunged for their weapons, but before they got close Neo was on them. His hands closed around their throats. They went down screaming, convulsing, writhing. I blinked through sweat and tears. What had he done to them?
He didn’t move like a human. He moved in stuttering jumps, like a video with missing frames. One moment he was with the two men, then suddenly three meters away, then directly in front of Nathan. He grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground without effort.
"You made a mistake,” he said. "You touched the one thing that belongs to me.”
The words hit me deep. Possessiveness. Raw, primitive possessiveness.
He pressed his hand to Nathan’s forehead. Nathan screamed as if his skull were on fire.
"Feel that?” Neo murmured. "Those are your synapses. I’m rewriting them. Your mind—I’m breaking it.” Then he dropped him like a sack of nothing.
I should have been horrified. Instead, I felt a dark satisfaction settle in me. Good. Let him suffer.
Nathan sank to his knees, tears streaming down his face. "Please . . . stop . . .”
Neo stood over him like a dark angel. The weak light of the warehouse threw shadows across his face, carving his cheekbones sharper, rendering his eyes darker. A god of wrath—beautiful and lethal.
Overwhelming gratitude surged through me. He was going to make them pay for what they’d done. Suddenly, I wanted only one thing: to be in his arms. "Neo,” I whispered.
He froze. His head snapped toward me, and for a moment I saw the man behind the monster’s mask.
"Pandora.” My name came off his lips, rough and desperate.
He crossed to me and tore the chains apart like paper. With trembling hands, he touched my face, fingertips moving across my cheek as if he was afraid I might shatter. His eyes were wet, the corners of his mouth pulled tight.
"I’m sorry,” he breathed. "I’m so sorry. I should never have let you out of my sight.” His voice broke. He examined my face, his thumbs moving over the marks the restraints had left on my wrists.
Then he saw my finger, swollen, bent at the wrong angle. His whole body went still. He took my injured hand with infinite care. His lips brushed the swollen joint.
Then his expression darkened. The lights in the warehouse flickered wildly. "Who did this to you?”
The memory of the pain rolled over me. The burning. The sound my bone had made when it broke. My eyes moved to the bigger one. He was still twitching on the floor. His eyes went wide as he understood what was coming.
Neo was on him before I could track the movement. He crouched beside him. The man tried to crawl away. His body wouldn’t obey him anymore.
"You broke her bone.” Neo placed his hand on the man’s arm. "I’m going to show you what that feels like. And then something much worse.”
A crack. The sound made me flinch. My heart beat faster. New energy moved through my battered body. A smile pulled at my lips. God help me. I liked it.
The man screamed.
Neo leaned forward, his voice almost gentle. "Who sent you?”
"P . . . please . . . I don’t know anything.” He sobbed, trying to shake his head.
"Wrong,” Neo said. "Try again.”
"I . . . I swear . . . just a job . . . no names . . .”
"How many of you are there?” Neo tightened his grip. A gurgling scream tore out of the man.
"Just . . . just us three . . . please . . .”
Neo pressed harder, bending the man’s arm past where it was meant to go. "How does that feel?” he asked quietly.
A shiver moved down my spine. I’d watched him kill before. Fast and precise. This was different. This was personal.
Neo stood and looked at what he’d done. The man’s arm hung limp, completely destroyed.
"So,” he said again. "Who sent you?”
"Don’t know. I . . . I only get messages . . . anonymous . . .” A wet, rattling sound came from the man.
Neo looked at him. "A liar. A coward. Worthless.”
He lifted the man as if he weighed nothing. God. That inhuman strength. I bit my lip, felt heat stir low in me. Damn it. It turned me on.
"This is for the pain you gave her,” Neo said, and hurled him into the concrete wall. His body hit with a deafening crack. Then went slack and fell.
I felt free. For the first time in hours, completely free.
Neo stood and wiped his hands on his pants. Then he turned to Nathan, who was still crouched on the floor, shaking.
Neo’s eyes narrowed. "You’re the one from the café.”
Nathan lifted his head. His glasses sat crooked on his nose. Naked fear filled his eyes.
"I knew it,” Neo said quietly. "I felt something was wrong with you. The way you stared at us for 4.5 milliseconds too long. The way your pupils dilated 0.2 millimeters when she looked at you. You were watching us. You wanted to know what you were dealing with, and then you identified my only weakness.” He paused. "Her.”
Nathan tried to speak. Only an incoherent murmur came out. Neo’s interference in his brain had caused damage.
"Your friend got his punishment. But what did you do to her?” He placed a hand on the man’s forehead.
His eyes flickered rapidly, as if reading something invisible.
"This is . . .” he said quietly, almost to himself, "new.” His fingers spread slightly against Nathan’s temple.
"I can receive you. Every impulse. Every memory you tried to bury.”
Then a shadow moved across his face. His jaw locked.
The muscles in the rest of his body followed.
He trembled with rage. "Blows.” His voice shook.
"Electric shocks.” Pain contorted his features.
He looked like something that had never been human.
For a moment he closed his eyes, as if he needed to process what he’d seen. As if his mind couldn’t hold it.
God. He could read thoughts. How was that possible? He was suffering. My heart seized. He couldn’t bear that someone had hurt me. Tears burned in my eyes. My throat tightened. Warmth spread through my chest despite all the pain. He loved me so much that my suffering had become his.
My broken finger twitched and my lips trembled. I wanted to tell him it was over, that I was here, that he’d found me. But all I could do was watch him break under the weight of what I’d felt.
Neo’s eyes lit up again. The air around him vibrated. A lamp exploded behind him, and the sparks surrounded him like a halo. His beauty stole the air from my lungs.
"I have something special planned for you.” His voice wasn’t human anymore. It sounded like the hum of a thousand servers. Like digital rage made flesh. "You’re going to die slowly. And you’re going to watch your own body betray you.”
My heart beat faster. It was wrong, cruel, and part of me screamed that I had to stop him, that no one deserved this. But the other part drank it in like a forbidden secret.
Neo placed both hands around Nathan’s throat. His fingers rested exactly where the pulse was. "I don’t even need to use force,” he murmured. "Your nervous system will do it for me.”
Nathan’s eyes went wide. Then his body collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
"Feel that?” Neo’s voice was almost tender. "Your heart is beating at half the speed it was ten seconds ago.”
Nathan took in thick, labored breaths, as the air couldn’t reach his lungs anymore. Sweat broke out on his forehead. His skin went ash-gray, then blue.
"That’s the beauty of biology,” Neo said quietly. "Pull one thread, and everything follows. Your blood pressure drops. Your organs starve. Your body surrenders.” His jaw tightened, eyes glowing like liquid metal.
I couldn’t look away. The sight of Nathan trembling, gasping for air . . . it should have horrified me. Instead, my heartbeat steadied, went even, as if Neo had healed my wounds by tearing open someone else’s.
Nathan’s eyes stared at nothing. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. His body was still fighting, but his mind had already broken. Neo’s fingers rested on his throat, motionless. Almost tender.
"Now,” he whispered, barely audible. "Now you die.”
Nathan’s last breath left him quietly. His head tilted to the side. His eyes stayed open. There was nothing left in them. Neo’s fingers lingered a moment longer at his throat, waiting for the last heartbeat. Then he let go.
He turned to the younger man, still lying on the floor, staring at nothing. In one fluid motion he lifted him by the throat until his feet left the ground. The man choked, face flooding with red, legs kicking uselessly in the air.
"And you?” Neo said. "What do we do with you?”
"Neo, no.” My voice cut through the air. "He’s different from the others. He . . . he had doubts.”
Neo froze. His fingers tensed around the man’s throat, fighting the urge to squeeze. His eyes still burned.
My lips trembled. "Please, Neo.”
He turned to me. Our eyes met, and something in him went soft. Slowly he lowered the man to the floor, but kept his gaze fixed on him.
"You’re lucky she exists,” he murmured. "Only for her can I hold myself back, when everything in me is screaming to crush you like an insect.” He pressed his hand to the man’s forehead. "You remember nothing. You were never here. You don’t know us. Go home to your family.”
The man blinked, confused, as if waking from a dream.
"You will never again hunt or hurt people for money,” Neo whispered.
The young man nodded mechanically, stood, and walked to the door without turning around, without understanding what had just happened. Neo watched until he was gone.
"Humanity doesn’t deserve you,” he whispered.
"Neo.” I tried to say his name, but my throat was raw. The tension left my body all at once. Exhaustion and pain rolled over me as a sob broke out of my throat.
He was beside me instantly. "Shh,” he murmured, and pulled me into his arms, held me while the sobs shook me. "I’m here. It’s over.”
In his arms I felt safe. His body was a shield between me and the world. I let myself fall against him, let him hold me. For the first time in my life, I gave up control willingly.
It felt like relief.