Lucas only stopped moving when I tore open his throat. Now I sat on his chest, my shoulders burning and my palm cut open from the glass shard. I breathed hard, dressed in a sheen of his blood that covered my arms and soaked into my t-shirt. I fell forward, then collapsed beside him, heaving until I hacked and coughed and lay flat on my back. I lay beside his body, one of my eyes swollen shut, my entire body aching. Get up. I had to get Dennie out of here. I didn’t know who else Lucas was working with, and I wasn’t going to let them get their hands on Dennie either. Get. Up. I rolled over, my body crunching over the broken glass. My arms shook as I got on all fours, then I stood up.

  I let go of the glass shard, letting it clatter onto the floor beside his throat. I didn’t look down, because I didn’t know what I’d feel if I did. I shut my eyes. Saw the memories of flashing scarlet violence that reeked of iron and raw meat that flooded my mind. My hands shook. I stared at them, their deep and swallowing cuts on my palms and the black grit under my nails. I clenched them, then walked. Forced myself to stagger out of the store and back onto the street, through the snow, swaying and tripping over my own two feet, my head an aching mess and my body a sack of weight so great I collapsed again and again into the mounds of snow, leaving blood in the white.

  I got to Dennie’s apartment building in a haze. I didn’t register walking up the stairs, down the hallway, knocking on his door, and finding him armed and ready with a kitchen knife. He swore and grabbed me before I fell. I got blood all over his vest. I pushed him off and headed for the washing machine, grabbing the belt from my costume. My fingers were numb. Thick, fat digits trying to flick open tiny compartments. I swore and picked and swore some more, until Dennie came and helped me. He told me to sit. His voice came to me in a dreamy echo. I shook my head and grabbed the phone, keyed in a number, then my legs gave out. I fell against the washing machine, my knees hitting the floor. The phone smacked the ground. I grabbed it and held it to my ear, trying to keep my mind in check as the dial tone rang and rang, a dull sound that filled my mind with nothing until—

  “This is the SDU helpline, how can we be of service to you today?”

  “I need Overseer Two,” I said. I think I did. My tongue was a fat mess of tissue in my throat, too heavy to control properly. I massaged my temples and squeezed my eyes shut. “I need to speak to the bastard right now.”

  “I’m sorry, but we don’t often give direct contact to—”

  “FUCK,” I snapped. “This is Olympia. Put him on the goddamned phone!”

  SIlence, then she said, “I’ll need proof of identification first.”

  Then I heard them, those meaty corpses trapped in their steel caskets. They hovered outside the window, not getting any closer. Everything was still pitch black, but Dennie had a tiny kerosine lantern sitting on the table, making them look ghastly as they peered inside the apartment. I stayed silent. Stood up and grabbed Dennie’s forearm, putting myself in between him and those creatures. His sister stood beside him, her dull grey eyes squinted and her brow furrowed with worry as she kept asking her brother what was going on. I swallowed. Hard. My throat was dry just staring at them. But they remained there, staring right at us, not moving a single muscle forward.

  “S0949-112,” I said into the phone. It had been the number on the card Overseer Two gave me.

  “He’ll be with you shortly. Thank you for your patience.”

  Not a second later, I heard: “Yes?”

  “We made a deal,” I said quietly, putting on the belt and slowly walking forward, avoiding the window and keeping my face on the creatures as they tracked us through the apartment. I mouthed for Dennie to grab what he could and quickly. “I need you to get some people I care about into one of your bunkers and right fucking now.”

  “What’s the situation?” he asked me. Voice ever flat, ever emotionless—like he almost didn’t care.

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  “Lucas,” I breathed into the phone. A flare of pain went through my ribs. I gritted my teeth and put my hand to the wound. Dennie finished zipping his sister’s suitcase and grabbed a first aid kit. I tried to bat him away but he insisted on lifting my shirt and cleaning the blood and wrapping gauze tightly around my midsection. It hurt. My head pulsated, making me lose concentration. I bit down on my lip and focused. “He attacked me.”

  “We’re sending an evac unit to your location,” he said. “Are you injured?”

  “Ambrosia,” I groaned. Too much time wasted on the bandages. I pulled down my shirt and grabbed the spare suitcase and forced them both out of the door. Other people in the hallway were watching us. Kids peeked out of their apartments, tiny faces ghastly in the pale light. “But that doesn’t matter. I just need them to be safe.”

  “They’ll be with you shortly. We’ll track your phone,” he said. “But what about Freeman? Is he—”

  “I wouldn’t believe it, not in a million years.”

  “Copy,” he said. “Five minutes out.”

  The phone went dead.

  “Who was that?” Dennie asked me as we hurried down the stairs. Their knees and backs weren’t good, and suitcases weren’t making their stumble-run down the flight any easier. It only got harder when I kept having to stop and let the pain in my side stop flaring so violently. He’d put something on that blade, something that made it feel like my blood was boiling. But I couldn’t stop. However bad my hearing was right now, those things were still outside, waiting, watching—I didn’t know why they didn’t attack me, but I wasn’t gonna question that right now.

  “A guy who’s gonna make sure you both stay safe,” I said, stumbling into the lobby. I led them both along as fast as they could go, suitcases clattering down the final steps and into the open air of the brisk night. The creatures hovered above us, making me freeze. They did nothing. I did something, and moved. Dennie’s sister was having the worst time of it. He had to make sure his hand was as tightly wrapped around hers as possible. The pavement was slippery, the night was silent—she was running from something she barely understood. And for that, guilt sat square in my stomach as she cursed and hobbled as her knees flared and her feet began to ache. I slowed and ducked into an alleyway, giving them both time to rest. Five shadows hung above us, darker than the night.

  Dennie, bent over and breathing hard, clutching his chest, said, “That bastard. I…I shoulda…”

  “It’s not your fight,” I said. Keep talking, it’ll distract yourself from the pain. “It’s mine.”

  He looked up at me, his face warped and sweaty and pained. “He hurt so many kids.”

  “And I’ll make sure he never hurts anyone ever again, I just need you guys to—”

  “Not just Ben, not just the girl before him.” Dennie shook his head, spat on the concrete. He moaned and then slumped over. I grabbed him, making sure he stayed on his feet. I buckled under his weight, struggling to keep him upright. “So many. They killed themselves for his attention. He cut up the bodies. Used them as bait. The strongest became his and the weakest drew out the supervillains he could beat. Blood on his hands. So much.” He grabbed his chest again, wincing. My heart was in my throat, my stomach turning as I strained to listen to the silence. Where the fuck is the SDU? Can’t hear any sirens. No rumbling trucks. Fuck, it’s the roads—everything is fucked right now. “I shoulda told someone, but he…he said if I ever did, it’ll be you next, and oh, God, I didn’t—”

  “It’s fine,” I said, letting him sit on a pile of bricks. He tilted his head back and opened his mouth, letting air curl around his mouth. “A lot of people should’ve put him down a long time ago. It all ends tonight, D. You’ve just gotta stay calm. Help is coming. In a couple of minutes, you’re gonna be safe and so is your sister, alright?”

  The gunshot was the loudest I’d ever heard.

  The body that thumped onto the ground behind me was the heaviest.

  I slowly turned, crouched beside Dennie behind the dumpster. His sister’s unseeing eyes stared at us, a fist-sized chunk of her skull missing and the mush of her brain matter smeared on the snow around the alleyway.

  Dennie cried out. A sound no old person should ever make as he grabbed at his sister. He cupped her head in his arms and stroked her hair, blood gushing out of the side of her skull. He wailed. Shrieked. I looked at the dark.

  There he stood, attached to his smoking gun—his face a bleeding mess slowly reconstructing.

  I stood, fists bawled. “What the fuck are you? You’re not human. You never fucking were.”

  Lucas’ eyes narrowed, then the gun fired again, this time aiming right at me.