We were preparing to leave Graveyard when I noticed something wrong.
The streets were too quiet. Not empty—there were people, vendors, children—but the rhythm was off.
The heartbeats I could hear were too controlled.
The footsteps too synchronized. The smell of the air had changed, sharp with ozone and gun oil.
I stopped in the middle of packing my bag. Mara nearly walked into me.
"What?"
I raised a hand. Listened.
Footsteps. Several pairs. Heavy, synchronized. Boots moving in formation, advancing through the side streets, converging.
Military.
My eyes moved toward the rooftops. Two figures there, silhouetted against the gray sky, rifles glinting in the sun. Snipers.
"Rainbow," I said.
Mara's face went pale. "How?"
I looked toward the pleasure district. Then toward the brothel where I'd rented my room. Then toward the market where I'd bought the gloves. My expression hardened.
"The owner."
They had been watching. Waiting. Reporting. Rainbow had found me, and they'd waited until I was in the open, away from the crowds, away from witnesses. They'd paid someone to keep tabs. They'd bought Graveyard's independence for the price of a single informant.
The first shot shattered a window behind us. Glass sprayed across the alley like diamonds.
I grabbed Mara and pulled her behind a concrete pillar as more bullets followed, chewing chunks from the wall, sparking off metal drums, filling the air with the scream of ricochets. The sound was deafening—automatic weapons, at least three shooters, maybe more, firing in controlled bursts.
My right hand tightened. The black substance surged beneath the glove, eager, hungry, angry . It wanted out. It wanted blood. It wanted to show these soldiers what they'd created.
I felt my bones begin to ache. The change pressed at the edges of my control, demanding release.
Not yet.
I wasn't going to lose control here. Not with Mara behind me. Not where Rainbow could see what I'd become and decide she needed to die too. Not where I might hurt the only person who'd looked at me like I was still human.
I pulled my hat lower. "Stay behind me."
Mara nodded, pressing herself against the pillar, her eyes wide.
I stepped into the street.
The soldiers raised their weapons. Six of them, advancing in a wedge formation, professional, patient. They'd learned from the skyscraper. They weren't underestimating me this time. They came with numbers, with angles, with kill zones.
I moved.
The first soldier never saw me coming. I crossed the distance between us in two seconds, my body operating on protocols I didn't understand, and struck him in the chest with an open palm. The impact lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing through a shipping container wall, the metal buckling around his body like paper.
The second fired. I twisted aside, the bullet grazing my coat, and reached him before he could adjust his aim. I broke his rifle in half across my knee, then broke his nose with the stock. He went down screaming.
The fight became chaos.
I didn't fully transform. I didn't let the black substance cover me. But I didn't need to. My body was already stronger, faster, more precise than anything human. I moved between them like smoke, striking joints, breaking weapons, using their own momentum against them. A kick to a knee that bent backward. An elbow to a throat that collapsed. A throw that sent a soldier into his comrades, bowling them over like pins.
But the more I fought, the more the Beast pushed forward.
Black substance crawled over my wrist, past the glove's edge, reaching toward my fingers, seeking the blood on my hands, seeking a way out.
I clenched my fist. No.
It stopped. For a moment. Reluctant, sulking, but obedient.
I was beginning to learn. The Beast responded to my will. Not perfectly. Not reliably. But enough.
Enough to keep me from becoming a monster in front of the one person who still saw me as a man.
I grabbed the last soldier by his throat and slammed him against the wall. His eyes rolled back. I dropped him and turned.
Mara was staring at me. She'd seen it all. The speed. The strength. The black veins creeping up my arm before I forced them back. The way I'd moved like something from a nightmare.
"We need to go," I said.
She didn't argue. She just ran.