Page 70 of Scarlet Wars
Without another word, the man at the front lifted his rifle, every inch of the motion a challenge.
I didn’t hesitate. The first gunshot cracked through the air as I surged forward, power already sparking under my skin.
I saw the bullet—felt its trajectory like a pressure change—and snapped a Skindo blade into its path. The metal rang as it collided, the round deflecting harmlessly off into a nearby tree.
With a flick of my haze, the remaining four blades spun free and shot forward in unison, each finding its mark. My first targets fell together, standing shoulder to shoulder with the man who had called for my arrest.
Their heads hit the ground before their bodies did.
I stood in the silence that followed, chest heaving, staring down at what I’d done.
And gods help me, it felt good.
No,right.
Like the first sip of something dark and forbidden. The first taste of revenge.
And with it came a thirst I already knew would be impossible to quench.
He wasn’t the one who killed my parents, but he was still working with or for the people who’d ordered it. Who’d enabled it. And that would do.
For now.
“Open fire!” Rachel shouted somewhere behind me.
Sean’s haze tore forward in a jagged line, shifting into its familiar emerald color the second it crossed into the Human World. It blasted through the snow and slammed straight into a cluster of humans charging out from the trees.
Caden flowed through the nearest hostiles with quiet, terrifying precision, each movement practiced to the point of artistry. His Chela whispered; throats opened. Blood splattered across the snow in dark, startling bursts.
I lunged, the five bladed Skindo back in my hand. The hilt slammed into a soldier’s chest. He coughed blood and crumpled. I pivoted cleanly, slicing upward in a sharp arc that dropped the next attacker before he could even raise his weapon.
They came at me three at a time, a neat little wedge of green and steel out of the tree line and my first thought was that I finally understood the appeal of bowling.
Two steps in and the first one was already skewered. My Skindo made this thin, eager noise, as though it was thrilled to be doing its job, and the man folded before he could even register disappointment.
The second charged with a godsdamn bayonet; I ducked, nicked his knees, and he went down faster than a Jenga tower on cocktail night.
The third tried to flank me, which was ambitious. Three blades caught him in the chest, and he collapsed in a way that made it look like his bones had given up on anatomy altogether.
None of them laid a finger on me. Honestly, it was kind of rude how little of a challenge they were. At this rate, the only thing in danger of being killed was my patience.
Breath huffing white, I wiped the iron from the edge of my Skindo on a sleeve.
A shot cracked, and I saw James dropping to a knee, Skindo raised right in time to deflect the bullet away from Rachel’s exposed side.
But the rifle fire wasn’t just sound, it was memory detonating in my skull.
The gunshots were too familiar, too exact, and grief punched through me like a second surge of energy ripping loose.
Suddenly I wasn’t on the snow-covered border anymore.
I was back in my dining room.
My mother’s blood spreading across the tile.
My father’s eyes, open, lifeless, and fixed on the ceiling.
Gunfire echoing off the walls.
