Neil’s voice cracked like weak glass. “Wait… are you threatening me?”
Raven’s boots crunched on the frost-bitten ground as she took one slow step closer. Her eyes locked on his, no warmth, no doubt.
“Yes,” she said flatly. “I’m threatening you.”
Another step.
“What the fuck are you gonna do about it?”
Neil’s mouth opened, but no words came out. His breath hung in the air, shallow and white.
“You need money. I have it,” Raven continued, voice like a knife run over a whetstone. “And I see the way your rat eyes crawl all over me. You look at me like that again, and I’ll pry them out with a knife.”
Neil’s flinch was instinctual, pathetic. But he didn’t have time to backpedal. Raven’s leg came up, smooth and fast, her athletic frame coiled like a spring.
Her knee slammed into his groin with brutal precision.
Neil doubled over with a strangled gasp, collapsing to his knees. A second later, her boot smashed into his chest, sending him sprawling onto the frozen dirt with a hollow grunt.
He hit the ground hard, curling onto his side as he wheezed for breath, hands clutched between his legs.
Raven straightened, exhaled, and looked around the lot.
Something felt wrong.
No cameras. No motion sensors. No staff. Not even a truck in the parking lot. The back water tanks were running on auxiliary power. The front office was quiet. She narrowed her eyes.
This place did business with the DNR. Hatcheries like this were usually crawling with oversight, paperwork, surveillance.
But this?
This place was a ghost town.
The only thing alive here was Neil, and maybe the fish.
“This place wasn’t clean even before the apocalypse,” she muttered. “I bet the kidnappings didn’t start with the Red Blood Raiders.” Raven thought to herself.
She reached into her coat, into her system space.
Her Beretta appeared in her hand without a sound—sleek, crome, and fitted with one of her Omni Silencers.
Neil was trying to crawl away, dragging himself with his elbows, one leg kicking weakly behind him.
“Change of plans, Neil,” Raven said.
He twisted to look at her, eyes wide. “Wait—wait—please don’t—”
She fired.
A pop. Muffled. Soft.
The bullet punched through his right kneecap with surgical precision.
Neil screamed. Not a yell—an unfiltered animal howl as he twisted and rolled, clutching his shattered leg. Blood sprayed across the gravel, thick and bright. He screamed again and again, incoherent curses spilling from his mouth.
“You bitch!” he howled. “You fucking shot me! I can’t fucking walk!”
He tried to scoot away with one leg, panting and dragging himself like a worm.
“You’re dead! You hear me?! When my friends get ahold of you, you’ll wish you were dead!”
Raven tilted her head slightly, watching him writhe.
Then, slowly, she smiled. But it wasn’t kind. It wasn’t pleased. It was cold. Final.
“Let’s take a look at your office, shall we?” she said. “This place feels too empty to be legit.”
She walked up to him, calm and deliberate, and reached down with one hand.
Neil tried to slap her away, but with one leg destroyed, his strength was nothing. She grabbed the collar of his shirt and dragged him with one smooth pull on the ground towards the office.
He screamed as blood soaked through his denim jeans.
“Don’t—don’t—please—”
She didn’t answer.
With her Beretta still in her right hand, Raven began dragging him across the gravel.
His body scraped along the dirt, legs limp, hands clawing uselessly at the ground. A crimson trail of blood followed him, smearing across the frostbitten lot, cutting a jagged path toward the suspicious front office.
Neil wailed with every movement, voice hoarse with agony.
“You can’t do this to me! I've got people! I've got—AHH”
Raven's hand on his shirt jerked, silencing him.
The trail of blood got thicker.
Blood and slush mixed beneath him.
Raven’s breath curled in the cold air, slow and steady.
She didn’t speak again.
Didn’t flinch.
Didn’t pause until they reached the door.
She stood in front of it, expression unreadable, with Neil collapsed at her feet, gasping and shaking.
Then, without ceremony, she kicked the door open.
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