I stopped thinking.
My body took over, guided by instincts that weren't human, weren't mine, were being fed to me by the thing beneath my skin. A soldier attacked from the left. I sensed him before I saw him, felt the displacement of air, the shift in temperature.
Another came from behind. I heard his heartbeat, smelled his soap, knew he was right-handed by the way his shoulder dipped before he swung.
A third aimed from the rooftop. I smelled the gun oil, heard the safety click off, and was moving before he fired.
I ducked. Rolled. Jumped. Every movement felt natural. Too natural. Like I'd been born to move this way, and the first twenty-eight years of my life had been spent forgetting.
I struck one soldier's knee. The joint bent the wrong way with a sound like breaking celery. He screamed.
I was already past him.
I grabbed another by the throat. My fingers tightened, feeling the pulse against my palm, the cartilage flexing. The man's heartbeat accelerated.
Fear flooded his scent—sharp, sour, delicious .
My stomach growled. Not metaphorically. Actually growled, a deep rumble that came from somewhere below my stomach.
I froze.
The scent was intoxicating. It filled my nose, my mouth, my mind. I could taste his terror. I could feel his life in my hand, fragile and warm and mine for the taking . My grip tightened. The black substance spread up my arm, covering my forearm in a sleeve of living shadow. My pupils narrowed, the world sharpening into predatory focus.
Something inside me wanted to tear the man's throat open. Wanted to drink the heat that came out.
Wanted to fill the hollow place with his life until I was finally, finally full.
I stared at the soldier. Into his eyes. I saw myself reflected there—a monster with black veins and hungry eyes. For one terrible second, I understood the appeal of the hunt. Understood it in my bones, in my blood, in the part of me that was no longer Kael Veyron.
Then I released him.
The soldier collapsed, gasping, clutching his throat.
I stepped backward, my whole body shaking, the black substance retreating like a tide, disappointed, sulking .
"What am I doing?" The words came out as a whisper.
A bullet struck my shoulder. I barely felt it—a pressure, a push, then a warmth that faded almost immediately.
Voss lowered her weapon. Her expression had changed. Not fear. Not anger. Interest. The look of a researcher whose experiment has just produced unexpected results.
"You don't understand your own body," she said.
I pulled the bullet out. It came free with a wet sound, the metal hot from impact. Blood welled, then stopped. The wound closed in seconds, leaving pink skin.
Voss watched, her eyes tracking every stage of the healing. "That's why you're dangerous."
I looked at her, the bullet still in my hand, my shoulder already whole. "No."
I put my hat back on. My coat was torn, my gloves ruined, but the hat remained. A small anchor to who I'd been.
"That's why you want me."
Then I attacked.
Voss was faster than the others.
She avoided my strikes with economy of motion, blocking with her forearms, countering with strikes that were precise and surgical. She knew how I moved. She'd studied me. Every fight in Graveyard's arena had been recorded, analyzed, fed into whatever machine Rainbow used to predict violence.
She forced me backward, step by step, her strikes landing on nerve clusters, on joints, on pressure points that sent sparks of pain through my newly rebuilt nervous system.
Then she injected something into my shoulder.
A needle, thin and cold, slipped past the black substance's defenses and delivered its payload before I could react. My body suddenly became weak. My knees buckled. The black substance roared, trying to fight the chemical, but it was too fast, too targeted.
I fell to one knee, my hand pressed against the asphalt, my vision swimming.
Mara screamed. "Kael!"
Voss turned toward her. "Don't worry." She walked closer, her boots crunching on gravel. "We're not here to hurt you."
Mara stepped backward, her eyes wide, her body trembling. "You're lying."
Voss smiled. "That's what everyone says before they come with us."
I forced myself upright. The black substance flooded through my veins, burning away the chemical, rewriting my blood faster than the toxin could disable it. The pain vanished. My eyes sharpened. The world came back into focus with crystalline clarity.
Voss's smile disappeared. "Interesting."
I charged.
This time, I didn't stop. I didn't hold back. I let the Beast have its way, let the black substance cover my arms, let my bones shift and my muscles rebraid and my nails become claws. I moved through the soldiers like a scythe through wheat, not killing—never killing, not yet, not unless I had to—but breaking. Arms. Legs. Rifles. Will.
Voss retreated to her vehicle, her calm finally cracking. She slammed the door as I reached her, and the transport peeled away, leaving soldiers behind, leaving equipment, leaving pride.
I stood in the road, breathing hard, covered in black veins and other people's blood, and watched her go.