Ravens scatter from the rooftops as our boots hammer the cobbles, echoing in these constricted alleys. Cham is the slowest, his breathing ragged, but Gene holds back too, staying just behind me despite how easily he could sprint ahead. I hate the weakness in my legs in my whole body. My entire body feels infected with fever, sluggish, and hot. Running with only one arm feels grotesque. My balance is ruined, every step tipping me slightly to the right.
But it doesn't take long, only half a minute at most, and we see the blue ahead of us, the one who took the boy. He's fat—his stomach looks like it's fighting to break free of his belt, sweat darkening his shirt. We slow, waiting for the right moment, stalking him through the murky light.
Then he drags the boy into an alley. The boy whimpers as the man forces him down, fingers raking through greasy, receding hair.
"We're gonna have some fun, boyo," he says with a grin, showing teeth like cracked porcelain.
That grin doesn't last. Gene crashes into him from the side, smashing the fat man's skull against the bricks. There's a wet crack. No hesitation—Gene kicks him in the face so hard his nose implodes.
I stay at the mouth of the alley, watching for witnesses. My stump pulses with pain in time with my racing heart. I taste blood, though it's not mine, the memory of it filling my mouth. Sweetness and copper. I can feel the blue's blood. Hear it. It calls to me, pulsing wet and bright from his shattered nose, the side of his split scalp. I want it.
But I force myself to keep looking out, teeth grinding.
Gene doesn't stop. He smashes the blue against the wall again and again. The bricks tremble. Cham holds the half-naked boy, whispering something, helping him stay on his feet. But Gene fights like a demon unleashed. There's no strategy, no finesse—just raw, animal violence.
And we all know. Even the raven perched on a gutter above us knows.
It takes Gene over thirty heartbeats to realize it. Even then, he doesn't stop immediately. His fists keep rising and falling, pounding the man's face into a pulp the color and consistency of mashed blueberries. Blood oozes from between his fingers, thick and glistening, almost beautiful. My vision swims red. My own eyes glow. So do Cham's.
I watch Gene's brow furrow, watch his breath rasp like a broken bellows. His mouth is twisted in something like a grin, but I know that expression. I've seen it on my face. It's not joy. It's the death of joy. It's the grin of someone who's lost everything.
Ren's face burns in my memory, pale and bloodied, eyes staring through me.
I let my madness recede, forcing the glow in my eyes to dull back to a mild blue—a lie, a disguise over the rage snarling in my guts.
We leave the corpse where it fell, cooling in the gutter, shadows swallowing what's left of it. I step up to Gene and pat his shoulder. He flinches but doesn't shrug me off. I glance past him at the boy in Cham's arms. He's crying, soft and broken. Cham holds him carefully, murmuring quiet comforts in a voice gone hoarse.
One heartbeat. One breath. One step forward.
Then I hear it. That croaking voice. Something only I can hear.
I whip my head around. The others keep moving, oblivious. My pulse spikes.
"Golden Reaper!" * (*) appreciates your readership at the source.
This time it's a scream in my skull. Then—silence. I stand frozen, thinking about the visions. About the way I've found myself inside other people, forced to see through their eyes, walk paths I'd never choose. Forced to say things I didn't know. Thinking about things that weren't mine.
Who am I? Why did I eat that finger? What was that place I saw, awash in impossible colors and blood like molten gold?
Sebastian. Me? Golden Reaper. Me? Why was I Aston and not dead after the attack of the green-blooded? What did I do to deserve this?
My arm throbs like a living thing. I flex the stump uselessly, watching Cham and Gene lead the boy ahead of me. My steps fall in behind them automatically, like a ghost tethered to the living, unseen and unacknowledged.