Perched on the thin edge of the staircase, Jay slid open the filthy window to get a better look inside. It took a long minute for his eyes to adjust to the dark. The apartment was small, one end turning around a corner he couldn’t see into. But what he could see did little to put him at ease.

The wall opposite him was lined with crates, ammunition spilling out of them. Thousands of bullets, more than any one person should ever need. Enough for an army.

Or just enough for a vigilante who kept stealing answers that were rightfully his.

A car horn blared down below, and Jay nearly fell from the railing. From this height, if he lost his footing, he was sure to paint the street with his skull. So with a glance back to be sure he hadn’t been seen, the lithe teen quietly slipped inside.

Jay didn’t know what he’d expected. For the man who’d been leaving a dense trail of corpses in his wake, it was surprisingly clean. Every surface empty, no dishes in the sink, no clutter at all to suggest the space was actually lived in. If he hadn’t gotten this lead, he would have thought this was just a safe house and a missed shot.

But then he heard the scream, the low voice, and a heavy thud. And he knew he had the right place.

Sneaking around the corner, he eyed the one doorway he couldn’t see past. The hall led to that one door, and Jay knew the truth lay just beyond it. One step after another he approached, eyes glued to the faded green wood. He had to know. No matter how this ended.

But too late, Jay realized his mistake. His foot caught on a tripwire, and the soft jingling of bells sounded throughout the apartment, deceivingly soft. With a small gasp, he tried to packpedal, but stumbled over his own feet and sprawled out on the dusty floor.

And then that green door slammed open, and Jay knew his luck had run out.

———————————————

“You’re gonna talk, or you’re gonna start losing fingers. Your call.”

Despite his trembling form, the burly redhead stayed silent. From how securely he was tied to the chair, there wasn’t much else he could do. Especially with how much of his own blood he was already covered with.

Francis took a slow step forward. And then another. The man in the chair looked about ready to piss himself. Gaze still held nonchalantly on the blade, Francis spoke as if discussing little more than the weather. “Not gonna be a second chance, friend. Choose right.”

Petrified expression twisting into something resembling anger, the redhead spat.

Francis dragged the whetstone along the blade of his knife, watching. “Ok, he nodded. “Alright.” He stepped forward, and slammed the blade into the other man’s hand, neatly tucked between two rows of bone.

The redhead screamed.

“Ah, ah, ah.” Francis shoved a bloody hand against the other’s mouth, and the screaming tapered off to whimpers and sobs. “You make more noise, somebody’s gonna think to call the cops. And if that happens? Well, they’re not gonna find you, so much as they’re going to find a pile of meat. We clear?”

The redhead nodded fiercely, tears dragging the blood down into his graying beard. Francis would have felt sympathy, had he not seen the guy mercilessly gut a dark-haired teenager an hour earlier. Francis’s blood still boiled, and only one thing was going to make that right. He flipped the knife, lifted his arm, and—

And then the bells in the kitchen rang out.

Francis frowned. He sheathed the blade, and instead flashed a pistol in clear view, gaze on the door. “You make a goddamn sound, you’re meat. Know that.”

He turned towards the door. Handle held tight in his white-knuckled grip, he turned the knob slowly before sending the door slamming open. He spotted a figure below, and grabbed him by the scruff and lifted, knocking him into the wall behind.

Calmly, Francis pressed the muzzle of the pistol against the guy’s temple. “You move, you’re dead. You scream, you’re dead. Take the fuckin’ mask off. Now.”

A trembling arm lifted up the mask and tossed it to the floor. Then didn’t move.

Francis stares at the pale-faced, wide-eyed expression before him, not understanding what he was seeing. Slowly, his brain kicked back into gear enough for him to speak.

“…Kid?”

Everything was falling apart.

James gritted his teeth as his knees hit the floor. He struggled against the restraints around his wrists, and nearly toppled forward when the agent delivered a swift knock to the side of his head, using the butt of his gun as leverage. A single, wordless warning, for him to knock it off.

“Please,” he gasped, head ringing from the blow. “She’s not here. Please.”

The agent ignored him. “Search the rooms. She’s going to be here somewhere.”

The group of agents spread throughout the house, checking behind doors, under and in anything large enough to hide. From where he kneeled, he could see one of them enter the bedroom, and eyed the opening to the attic.

“Please,” he tried again. “I-“

The side of James’s head cracked against the wall from the force of the next blow, knocking the words out of him in a daze of stars. His stomach flipped. If they found her, all his work would be for nothing. If they found her, he’d never see her again.

The agent stepped towards the opening, nudging the panel with his rifle. The panel slowly shifted aside, inch by painful inch as James waited with bated breath. It was over. They would find her, and take her, and-

A blast echoed through the tense silence. The window blasted open, and a round sliced through the agent’s eye, leaving the meat of his head exposed. For a long, tense moment, nobody moved or said a word. And then the body crumpled to the floor, and all hell broke loose.

The moment the body fell, the lights shut off, all the electronics in the old cabin shutting down. The m whirring ceased and left only a deafening silence in its wake.

Commands were shouted. The agents swore as they tried to obey, bumping into furniture and walls and even each other. James heaved a sigh. Either they didn’t know what they were up against, or they were just so ill-prepared that it wouldn’t have mattered.

The shackles around James’s wrists groaned against him, and finally snapped under the force. They fell to the floor with a clink, and James ducked in time to avoid the butt of the rifle he knew was swinging right in his direction. Even in the pitch black, his hand wrapped easily around the shaft of the other man’s gun, and he yanked.

For good measure, James shot a foot out, catching the agent just beneath the knew. Still unrecovered from the blackout, the agent lost his footing instantly, going tumbling into the dark. One down.

Another shot rang out above the shouting, this time deafeningly close. James smiled. Reinforcements had arrived.

James stood, and cloaked in unrelenting shadow, ghosted through the cabin, only pausing long enough to slide his dagger into each agent’s chest. Step. Sidestep. Stab. Step. Sidestep. Stab. One by one, the bodies crumpled to the floor, tac gear clattering against the floorboards.

James grabbed the next body, slamming them into the wall and raising the dagger. “Hey, hey, it’s me! Easy!” The voice barked out, shoving his hand away. James scoffed, turning back towards the dozen or so agents that remained. “Thanks for the backup,” he said into the black. “Get the girl. I’ll hande the rest of them myself.”

He could sense the nod in return despite the dark. All the years they’d fought side by side, and they still knew each others’ languages by heart. Raising the dagger and crowching low, James disappeared back into the shadows, moving like a phantom until the last of the agents had fallen.

Only when the cabin lay as dead as the corpses by his bloodstaied feet did James know he could make his way up to the attic. He hoisted himself up to hear Cody mumbling soothing nothings to the girl to calm her. Instantly, the adrenaline left his body; she was safe, and in good hands once more. Leave it to Cody to show up at the least convenient time and still shine through.

“So,” James said, the beginnings of exhaustion starting to creep up on him.

“So,” Cody repeated, looking up from where the young girl was curled against his now tear-soaked shirt. “What now?”

James wiped the dripping dagger against his tac pants, expression unchanging. He could feel the blood on his face starting to dry.

“Now we kill every last son of a bitch who dared try to lay a hand on her.”