Marcus Pelegrimas - The Breaking

It had been a while since that arm was normal. She’d been injured some time ago, but being able to move it normally and feel a full range of sensation through it was just a fond memory. Her most recent gamble had worked in that her arm withstood the punishment of her fall. Like the tactical vest, the outer layers were stripped away, revealing the true extent of the injury she’d received in Kansas City. Flesh had been frozen into a hardened shell that looked more like a crude sketch of human anatomy instead of the real thing. Blood was caked onto it like an old stain made by cheap, flaking red paint, and when she flexed her arm tentatively, the veins barely shifted within the mess. Paige couldn’t bear to look at it any longer. She didn’t even want to know how much of her arm was being preserved by the healing serum and how much was simply kept in its petrified state by whatever toxins were still inside of her.

Another car horn, followed by a familiar voice snarling viciously at the twisted metal around him, was all she needed to get back on the proper track. Her legs hurt but were still moving and supporting her weight. Because of the healing serum produced within her bloodstream, the pain filling her entire body ignited her resolve, instead of crippling her like it would a normal person. When she hobbled into the next lane to take advantage of a small opening between approaching cars, she only glanced occasionally to either side. Compared to what she’d left behind, oncoming traffic was the least of her worries.

The expressway was slick beneath her boots, but not slippery. That worked in her favor by getting the cars to slow down as they rounded the bend to avoid the same sort of crash that she had purposely endured. By the time she neared the guardrail on the opposite side of the road from the wrecked rental car, she heard a bellowing voice roll toward her from the other side of the expressway.

“Where do you think yer goin’, Bloodhound?”

She might have to kill him, she realized. It was simple survival now.

Paige hobbled backward until she felt her legs bump against the rail. A glance behind her showed how long a drop awaited if she decided to jump, and even if she did make it, Rico wouldn’t need many guesses to figure out where she’d gone. Ignoring the horns and engines of the cars that passed between them, she focused on the heap of wreckage. Some voices came from a few passing cars, but the angry and concerned ones alike were silenced when she raised her Beretta to sight along the top of its barrel.

She fired the moment she spotted Rico, but there was too much twisted metal in front of him for a bullet to find a clean path. He seemed to be as dazed as she was. Although he didn’t have a petrified arm to protect him, the jacket stitched together from Half Breed skins had done a fine job of seeing him through the crash. Judging by the awkward way he dropped and shuffled behind the car, however, his legs weren’t in very good shape.

“This ain’t how I wanted it to go!” he shouted.

She replied by squeezing off one more careful shot that sparked against the side of the rental car.

Rico’s voice was calmer when he said, “I’ll chalk it up to nerves if you cut this shit out right now. Don’t make me hunt you!”

She fired again, punching another few holes into the wrecked car. Her grouping was solid, and it wouldn’t be long before she hit pay dirt. All she knew was that she couldn’t let him get away. She just couldn’t. There was no other reason than that. Once she peeled away her logic to that point, Paige realized it was shallower than the puddles on the expressway. Turning her head to give herself a moment to think, she found herself looking into a narrow, angular face that still dripped with the water kicked up during his escape from the rental car.

“You have to kill him,” Kawosa said in a voice that had somehow been wiped away before. “You’re all alone and can only worry about surviving now.”

Even as she looked at the creature that had spoken those words, the sight of him began to fade. He wasn’t disappearing, she reminded herself. He’d told her she was alone and she believed him, just like he must have when she first started shooting. Something about his words was impossible to dispute. Instead of trying to figure out why that was, she pointed her gun at him.

“No,” he said. “You can’t shoot me.”

Realizing it was true, she lowered her Beretta. Kawosa started to say something else, but she drew the machete from her boot and swung at him before he could get his words out. The edge that had been treated with the metallic varnish infused with fragments from the Blood Blade would have sliced through Kawosa’s skinny neck like butter if he hadn’t been so quick to lean away. Instead, it grazed the side of his head and cut a straight line up toward one eye. The blade didn’t come anywhere close to blinding him, but it did send a quick spray of blood to the ground. By the time the drops hit her boot, Kawosa had shifted into his animal form and bounded away. Since she’d acted quickly enough to sidestep his lies, she figured he wouldn’t be returning to try again anytime soon.

Suddenly, Rico stood up from behind his cover. He’d ditched the shotgun in favor of the Sig Sauer that had been his trusted companion for the last several years. There was no more talking to be done. The instant he caught sight of her, he squeezed his trigger to unleash a steady current of lead that ripped across the expressway, chipped at a few passing cars, and hissed progressively closer to the spot where Paige was standing.

She waited until he ran along the shoulder to try and get a better angle on her, then fired until her rounds finally punched through the layers of steel protecting the rental car’s gas tank. It caused a spark that ignited the fuel and set off an explosion that shoved the car sideways several feet against the glistening pavement. It wasn’t the grand finale sort of explosion she’d been promised by all those movies and cop shows, but it was good enough to force Rico to dive for cover before he was blown over the guardrail behind him.

Paige knew he wasn’t down for the count. She also knew she couldn’t move at more than half speed as she turned and hobbled along the side of the road. More cars were either gawking at the flaming wreck or slowing to ease past it. Drivers shouted at each other, her, and possibly Rico, but she couldn’t bother with any of that. It took all of her focus to block them out while tearing off a piece of her shirt and crouching down to dab at the blood on the pavement. Praying she wasn’t just cleaning up her own mess, she let out a relieved breath when she found something that was even better than what she’d hoped to collect. She couldn’t be absolutely certain, but the little piece of rounded flesh looked like an earlobe. It was still warm after being cut from Kawosa’s head, so she wrapped it up and tucked it safely into a pocket. From there, she resumed moving along the shoulder of the expressway toward a spot where the slope of the ground rose up to meet the guardrail. Her arm hung at her side, throbbing with more pain than she’d felt since it was first poisoned. She needed to get more healing serum. She needed to get somewhere safe enough to make a phone call. But more than either of those things, she just needed to get the hell away from Rico.

“Screw it,” she grunted as she grabbed onto the rail and swung her legs over.

Motorists shouted for her to stop. They told her help was on the way.

Paige couldn’t stop.

There was no help on its way.

Nine cops were dead, and those were only the ones that had been killed in Denver on the night that Cole, Rico, Prophet, and the Amriany shot their way through a warehouse being used by the Nymar. Across the country, more cops had died in similar raids or were murdered in silence and left with Skinner weapons in their bodies. It didn’t take long for those crimes to be tied together and pinned onto what was quickly labeled a cell of home-grown terrorists. Thanks to the news coverage focused on the blood-soaked Denver warehouse, Cole’s capture was heralded as the death of that cell.