Nolan's expression hardened into something cold and dangerous.
He stopped mid-stride, foot planted firmly on the alley floor. Instead of retreating, he pivoted to face the threat head-on, his body shifting into a combat stance with practiced ease.
The black-haired girl in the yellow dress moved like a marionette with tangled strings. Her movements were stiff, mechanical, wrong in a way that made the skin crawl. She rushed toward Nolan with jerky, unnatural steps.
Her eyes were red-rimmed, tears tracking down her cheeks even as her face remained slack and emotionless. She raised slender arms that trembled slightly, as if fighting against invisible chains. Her hands balled into fists.
Then she swung at him.
Nolan drew a sharp breath through his nose.
The sound of her punch cutting through air told him everything he needed to know. That fist carried far too much force for a normal human. The girl was enhanced somehow, metahuman strength wrapped in an ordinary-looking package.
And she wasn't alone. The middle-aged man was the real threat.
Time seemed to slow.
Nolan's eyes narrowed to slits. His muscular back tensed, shoulders rolling forward. Every muscle in his legs coiled tight, and then he pushed off the ground with explosive force.
He launched himself forward like a blade freed from its sheath, closing the distance with the crying girl in an instant.
The moment he entered combat mode, something fundamental shifted in Nolan. The emotional turmoil from earlier vanished, replaced by cold, calculating precision. He moved with absolute confidence, his enhanced body responding to threats with perfect efficiency.
The girl's heavy fist swung toward his head.
Nolan twisted sideways. The punch whistled past his ear, missing by inches. She was strong, but she fought without technique, without control. Easy to read. Easy to counter.
Before she could pull her arm back for another strike, Nolan moved.
His muscular arm whipped out in a brutal arc. Every ounce of his strength, every bit of the nameless rage that had been building since he read Zoya's message on those goggles, channeled into a single devastating blow.
His forearm slammed into the side of her neck.
The impact sounded like a thunderclap in the confined alley. Flesh and bone met with terrible force.
The girl flew. Her body lifted off the ground, yellow dress billowing around her like wings. She hit the brick wall hard enough to crater it, chunks of masonry exploding outward. The entire wall shuddered from the impact.
Nolan didn't wait to see if she'd get back up.
His eyes had already locked onto his real target. A cold smile, predatory and vicious, spread across his face. His shoulders dropped into a charging stance.
Then he accelerated, feet pounding against pavement as he rushed the middle-aged man.
"Impossible!" The man's eyes went wide, so wide they looked ready to pop from their sockets. His carefully maintained composure shattered. "Friend! This is just a misunderstanding! Jessica! Get back here!"
His voice rose to a panicked shout as he registered the killing intent radiating from Nolan. That wasn't the look of someone coming to break up a fight. That was the look of someone coming to end a life.
The man's expression twisted, desperation giving way to desperate cunning. He sucked in a deep breath and spoke with forced calm, his words carrying an unnatural weight.
"Stop immediately! I order you to stop any action you take!"
His power washed over Nolan like oil on water, sliding off without purchase.
Whatever mind control the man possessed, whatever speech-based ability let him command others, it found no grip on Nolan's consciousness. The simulator had changed him too much, made him something other than a normal human mind.
Nolan's shoulder drove into the man's chest like a battering ram.
The impact lifted the purple-suited figure off his feet and slammed him back against a streetlight pole. The metal post bent from the force, warping with a tortured groan.
Due to their size difference, Nolan's shoulder caught the man square in the face. The bridge of his nose collapsed instantly, cartilage and bone crunching. Teeth shattered, fragments cutting into his gums and tongue. Blood sprayed from his mouth and nose, dark in the dim light.
Nolan's eyes burned red with fury. While you're down, finish it. No mercy. No hesitation.
His other arm, still hanging at his side, shot upward.
His hand clamped around the man's throat. Then he twisted, sharply, putting all his enhanced strength into the motion.
Crack.
The man's neck snapped like a dry twig. The sound was sharp and final in the quiet alley.
His head lolled to the side, settling at an impossible angle against his shoulder. His eyes stared at nothing, frozen wide with disbelief that this could happen to him.
The murderous haze began to clear from Nolan's mind. He took a step back, breathing hard.
The corpse slid down the bent streetlight, leaving a smear of blood on the metal. It crumpled into a heap on the ground.
Nolan stared at the body with a frown. Blood pooled beneath it, and in the poor light, it looked wrong. Too purple. Too dark.
"Xenos?" he muttered to himself, mind racing through possibilities. "Or a side effect of his powers? What was his ability? Some kind of command voice? Mind Control?"
His phone buzzed in his pocket, making him jump slightly.
David's synthetic voice emerged from the speaker, calm and informative.
"Dear Omnissiah, the deceased is not alien life. Merely a foolish human who obtained metahuman abilities and used them recklessly. His blood's unusual coloration is likely a physiological side effect of his power's nature."
Nolan blinked, then let out a short, humorless laugh. "Of course you were monitoring."
He turned away from the corpse and walked back toward where he'd struck the girl. He needed to check if she was alive, if she required medical attention. If she was dead...
Well. He'd deal with that problem when he came to it.
But the girl wasn't dead.
She sat slumped against the cratered wall, half-lying in a pile of broken bricks and mortar dust. Her hands covered her face, and her shoulders shook with sobs. The sound was raw and broken, the crying of someone who'd been holding back tears for far too long.
With the middle-aged man's death, whatever control he'd held over her had snapped. She'd regained her freedom, her will, herself.
Nolan's footsteps were heavy as he approached, boots crunching on debris.
The girl's head snapped up at the sound. Her hands dropped away from her face, scrabbling at her torn dress as she tried to cover exposed skin. She pulled her legs close to her body, making herself small.
Her bloodshot eyes fixed on Nolan with obvious wariness, looking up at his large frame looming over her.
In the dim backlight from the street beyond, Nolan could finally see her face clearly.
Recognition hit him immediately.
She was a student at Midtown High School. Not just any student, his classmate. They'd been in the same grade, shared some classes before he'd take his vacation.
"Jessica Jones?" he asked, keeping his voice soft despite the adrenaline still coursing through his system.
Hearing her name from this stranger's mouth, Jessica's eyes widened. She studied his face, trying to place him. Nolan had changed so much in the past weeks, bulked up and hardened in ways that made him almost unrecognizable.
She straightened slightly against the wall, her voice weak and hoarse. "It's... it's me. Thank you. Thank you for saving my life."
"Do you want to live or die?" Nolan cut her off bluntly, his eyes narrowed.
Jessica froze. The question didn't seem to register at first. She stared at him, mouth slightly open, confusion written across her bruised face.
Nolan raised one thick arm and rotated his wrist slowly, the gesture deliberately casual and threatening at once. His eyes never left her face.
"You didn't see me tonight. Understand?"
He let the words hang in the air for a moment, then added, "Of course, if you'd rather die, you can tell everyone what happened here. Your choice."
Understanding dawned in Jessica's eyes. The fog of shock began to clear, replaced by sharp intelligence.
She shifted her gaze away from Nolan, looking past him to where the purple-suited corpse lay crumpled. Her expression twisted with hatred so intense it bordered on feral. She let out a short, bitter laugh.
"You're worried for nothing," she said, her voice gaining strength. "I hate that demon. He's been torturing me for months. Making me do... things." Her hands clenched into fists, knuckles white. "I'll call the police myself. I'll take responsibility for his murder. I won't mention you at all. I swear it on my life, and on the chastity that bastard stole from me."
Nolan studied her face, reading the genuine fury burning in her eyes. The absolute conviction in her voice.
Several seconds of silence stretched between them.
Then Nolan turned without a word and walked back to the streetlight. He bent down, grasped the corpse by its expensive suit jacket, and hoisted it over his shoulder with casual ease. The dead weight meant nothing to his enhanced strength.
He headed deeper into the alley, toward the shadows and the maze of back streets beyond.
"You get to live because you're smart," he said without looking back. "Get yourself to a hospital. Have them check you over."
His footsteps faded into the darkness, leaving Jessica alone with the wreckage of her prison and the first taste of freedom she'd known in months.